How to integrate Help Scout MCP with CrewAI

This guide walks you through connecting Help Scout to CrewAI using the Composio tool router. By the end, you'll have a working Help Scout agent that can summarize open help scout conversations, draft replies for urgent help scout conversations, list unassigned help scout conversations through natural language commands. This guide will help you understand how to give your CrewAI agent real control over a Help Scout account through Composio's Help Scout MCP server. Before we dive in, let's take a quick look at the key ideas and tools involved.

Help Scout logoHelp Scout
Oauth2

Help Scout is customer support software for shared inboxes, help centers, and customer management. It helps support teams resolve customer conversations faster with clear context and simple workflows.

129 Tools

Introduction

This guide walks you through connecting Help Scout to CrewAI using the Composio tool router. By the end, you'll have a working Help Scout agent that can summarize open help scout conversations, draft replies for urgent help scout conversations, list unassigned help scout conversations through natural language commands.

This guide will help you understand how to give your CrewAI agent real control over a Help Scout account through Composio's Help Scout MCP server.

Before we dive in, let's take a quick look at the key ideas and tools involved.

Also integrate Help Scout with

TL;DR

Here's what you'll learn:
  • Get a Composio API key and configure your Help Scout connection
  • Set up CrewAI with an MCP enabled agent
  • Create a Tool Router session or standalone MCP server for Help Scout
  • Build a conversational loop where your agent can execute Help Scout operations

What is CrewAI?

CrewAI is a powerful framework for building multi-agent AI systems. It provides primitives for defining agents with specific roles, creating tasks, and orchestrating workflows through crews.

Key features include:

  • Agent Roles: Define specialized agents with specific goals and backstories
  • Task Management: Create tasks with clear descriptions and expected outputs
  • Crew Orchestration: Combine agents and tasks into collaborative workflows
  • MCP Integration: Connect to external tools through Model Context Protocol

What is the Help Scout MCP server, and what's possible with it?

The Help Scout MCP server is an implementation of the Model Context Protocol that connects your AI agent and assistants like Claude, Cursor, etc directly to your Help Scout account. It provides structured and secure access to your inboxes, conversations, customers, organizations, and support team, so your agent can find conversations, create support requests, manage customer records, update organizations, and review team members on your behalf.

  • Conversation management: Have your agent list and filter support conversations, retrieve their details, create new conversations, and update existing ones.
  • Customer record management: Let the agent find customers, review their profiles, create new records, and update contact or profile information.
  • Inbox visibility: Direct your agent to list the Help Scout inboxes you can access and retrieve details about a specific inbox.
  • Organization management: Instruct your agent to find, create, review, and update customer organizations in Help Scout.
  • Support team lookup: Have your agent list support users, filter them by inbox or email, and retrieve individual team member details.

What is the Composio tool router, and how does it fit here?

What is Composio SDK?

Composio's Composio SDK helps agents find the right tools for a task at runtime. You can plug in multiple toolkits (like Gmail, HubSpot, and GitHub), and the agent will identify the relevant app and action to complete multi-step workflows. This can reduce token usage and improve the reliability of tool calls. Read more here: Getting started with Composio SDK

The tool router generates a secure MCP URL that your agents can access to perform actions.

How the Composio SDK works

The Composio SDK follows a three-phase workflow:

  1. Discovery: Searches for tools matching your task and returns relevant toolkits with their details.
  2. Authentication: Checks for active connections. If missing, creates an auth config and returns a connection URL via Auth Link.
  3. Execution: Executes the action using the authenticated connection.

Step-by-step Guide

Step by step08 STEPS
1

Prerequisites

Before starting, make sure you have:
  • Python 3.9 or higher
  • A Composio account and API key
  • A Help Scout connection authorized in Composio
  • An OpenAI API key for the CrewAI LLM
  • Basic familiarity with Python
2

Getting API Keys for OpenAI and Composio

OpenAI API Key
  • Go to the OpenAI dashboard and create an API key. You'll need credits to use the models, or you can connect to another model provider.
  • Keep the API key safe.
Composio API Key
  • Log in to the Composio dashboard.
  • Navigate to your API settings and generate a new API key.
  • Store this key securely as you'll need it for authentication.
3

Install dependencies

bash
pip install composio crewai crewai-tools[mcp] python-dotenv
What's happening:
  • composio connects your agent to Help Scout via MCP
  • crewai provides Agent, Task, Crew, and LLM primitives
  • crewai-tools[mcp] includes MCP helpers
  • python-dotenv loads environment variables from .env
4

Set up environment variables

bash
COMPOSIO_API_KEY=your_composio_api_key_here
USER_ID=your_user_id_here
OPENAI_API_KEY=your_openai_api_key_here

Create a .env file in your project root.

What's happening:

  • COMPOSIO_API_KEY authenticates with Composio
  • USER_ID scopes the session to your account
  • OPENAI_API_KEY lets CrewAI use your chosen OpenAI model
5

Import dependencies

python
import os
from composio import Composio
from crewai import Agent, Task, Crew
from crewai_tools import MCPServerAdapter
import dotenv

dotenv.load_dotenv()

COMPOSIO_API_KEY = os.getenv("COMPOSIO_API_KEY")
COMPOSIO_USER_ID = os.getenv("COMPOSIO_USER_ID")

if not COMPOSIO_API_KEY:
    raise ValueError("COMPOSIO_API_KEY is not set")
if not COMPOSIO_USER_ID:
    raise ValueError("COMPOSIO_USER_ID is not set")
What's happening:
  • CrewAI classes define agents and tasks, and run the workflow
  • MCPServerHTTP connects the agent to an MCP endpoint
  • Composio will give you a short lived Help Scout MCP URL
6

Create a Composio Tool Router session for Help Scout

python
composio_client = Composio(api_key=COMPOSIO_API_KEY)
session = composio_client.create(user_id=COMPOSIO_USER_ID, toolkits=["help_scout"])

url = session.mcp.url
What's happening:
  • You create a Help Scout only session through Composio
  • Composio returns an MCP HTTP URL that exposes Help Scout tools
7

Initialize the MCP Server

python
server_params = {
    "url": url,
    "transport": "streamable-http",
    "headers": {"x-api-key": COMPOSIO_API_KEY},
}

with MCPServerAdapter(server_params) as tools:
    agent = Agent(
        role="Search Assistant",
        goal="Help users search the internet effectively",
        backstory="You are a helpful assistant with access to search tools.",
        tools=tools,
        verbose=False,
        max_iter=10,
    )
What's Happening:
  • Server Configuration: The code sets up connection parameters including the MCP server URL, streamable HTTP transport, and Composio API key authentication.
  • MCP Adapter Bridge: MCPServerAdapter acts as a context manager that converts Composio MCP tools into a CrewAI-compatible format.
  • Agent Setup: Creates a CrewAI Agent with a defined role (Search Assistant), goal (help with internet searches), and access to the MCP tools.
  • Configuration Options: The agent includes settings like verbose=False for clean output and max_iter=10 to prevent infinite loops.
  • Dynamic Tool Usage: Once created, the agent automatically accesses all Composio Search tools and decides when to use them based on user queries.
8

Create a CLI Chatloop and define the Crew

python
print("Chat started! Type 'exit' or 'quit' to end.\n")

conversation_context = ""

while True:
    user_input = input("You: ").strip()

    if user_input.lower() in ["exit", "quit", "bye"]:
        print("\nGoodbye!")
        break

    if not user_input:
        continue

    conversation_context += f"\nUser: {user_input}\n"
    print("\nAgent is thinking...\n")

    task = Task(
        description=(
            f"Conversation history:\n{conversation_context}\n\n"
            f"Current request: {user_input}"
        ),
        expected_output="A helpful response addressing the user's request",
        agent=agent,
    )

    crew = Crew(agents=[agent], tasks=[task], verbose=False)
    result = crew.kickoff()
    response = str(result)

    conversation_context += f"Agent: {response}\n"
    print(f"Agent: {response}\n")
What's Happening:
  • Interactive CLI Setup: The code creates an infinite loop that continuously prompts for user input and maintains the entire conversation history in a string variable.
  • Input Validation: Empty inputs are ignored to prevent processing blank messages and keep the conversation clean.
  • Context Building: Each user message is appended to the conversation context, which preserves the full dialogue history for better agent responses.
  • Dynamic Task Creation: For every user input, a new Task is created that includes both the full conversation history and the current request as context.
  • Crew Execution: A Crew is instantiated with the agent and task, then kicked off to process the request and generate a response.
  • Response Management: The agent's response is converted to a string, added to the conversation context, and displayed to the user, maintaining conversational continuity.

Complete Code

Here's the complete code to get you started with Help Scout and CrewAI:

python
from crewai import Agent, Task, Crew, LLM
from crewai_tools import MCPServerAdapter
from composio import Composio
from dotenv import load_dotenv
import os

load_dotenv()

GOOGLE_API_KEY = os.getenv("GOOGLE_API_KEY")
COMPOSIO_API_KEY = os.getenv("COMPOSIO_API_KEY")
COMPOSIO_USER_ID = os.getenv("COMPOSIO_USER_ID")

if not GOOGLE_API_KEY:
    raise ValueError("GOOGLE_API_KEY is not set in the environment.")
if not COMPOSIO_API_KEY:
    raise ValueError("COMPOSIO_API_KEY is not set in the environment.")
if not COMPOSIO_USER_ID:
    raise ValueError("COMPOSIO_USER_ID is not set in the environment.")

# Initialize Composio and create a session
composio = Composio(api_key=COMPOSIO_API_KEY)
session = composio.create(
    user_id=COMPOSIO_USER_ID,
    toolkits=["help_scout"],
)
url = session.mcp.url

# Configure LLM
llm = LLM(
    model="gpt-5",
    api_key=os.getenv("OPENAI_API_KEY"),
)

server_params = {
    "url": url,
    "transport": "streamable-http",
    "headers": {"x-api-key": COMPOSIO_API_KEY},
}

with MCPServerAdapter(server_params) as tools:
    agent = Agent(
        role="Search Assistant",
        goal="Help users with internet searches",
        backstory="You are an expert assistant with access to Composio Search tools.",
        tools=tools,
        llm=llm,
        verbose=False,
        max_iter=10,
    )

    print("Chat started! Type 'exit' or 'quit' to end.\n")

    conversation_context = ""

    while True:
        user_input = input("You: ").strip()

        if user_input.lower() in ["exit", "quit", "bye"]:
            print("\nGoodbye!")
            break

        if not user_input:
            continue

        conversation_context += f"\nUser: {user_input}\n"
        print("\nAgent is thinking...\n")

        task = Task(
            description=(
                f"Conversation history:\n{conversation_context}\n\n"
                f"Current request: {user_input}"
            ),
            expected_output="A helpful response addressing the user's request",
            agent=agent,
        )

        crew = Crew(agents=[agent], tasks=[task], verbose=False)
        result = crew.kickoff()
        response = str(result)

        conversation_context += f"Agent: {response}\n"
        print(f"Agent: {response}\n")

Conclusion

You now have a CrewAI agent connected to Help Scout through Composio's Tool Router. The agent can perform Help Scout operations through natural language commands.

Next steps:

  • Add role-specific instructions to customize agent behavior
  • Plug in more toolkits for multi-app workflows
  • Chain tasks for complex multi-step operations
TOOLS

Supported Tools

Every Help Scout action and event your agent gets out of the box.

Create Chat Handle

Tool to create a chat handle for a Help Scout customer.

Create Chat Thread

Tool to create a new chat thread on a Help Scout conversation.

Create Conversation

Tool to create a new conversation in Help Scout.

Create Customer

Tool to create a new customer in Help Scout with contact details and profile information.

Create Customer Address

Tool to create an address for a Help Scout customer.

Create customer email

Tool to create an email for a customer in Help Scout.

Create Customer Phone

Tool to create a phone number for a Help Scout customer.

Create Customer Property

Tool to create a customer property definition in Help Scout.

Create Customer Thread

Tool to create a new customer thread on a Help Scout conversation.

Create Customer Website

Tool to create a website entry for a customer in Help Scout.

Create Note on Conversation

Tool to create a new note thread on a Help Scout conversation.

Create Organization

Tool to create a new organization in Help Scout.

Create Organization Property

Tool to create a new custom property definition for organizations in Help Scout.

Create Phone Thread

Tool to create a new phone thread on a Help Scout conversation.

Create Reply Thread

Tool to create a new reply thread on a Help Scout conversation.

Create saved reply

Tool to create a saved reply for a mailbox in Help Scout.

Create Social Profile

Tool to create a social profile for a customer in Help Scout.

Create Webhook

Tool to create a new webhook subscription in Help Scout to receive real-time event notifications.

Delete Chat Handle

Tool to delete a chat handle for a customer.

Delete Conversation

Tool to move a conversation to the deleted folder.

Delete customer

Tool to permanently delete a customer by ID from Help Scout.

Delete Customer Address

Tool to delete a customer's address from Help Scout.

Delete Customer Email

Tool to delete an email for a customer.

Delete Customer Phone

Tool to delete a customer's phone number from Help Scout.

Delete Customer Property

Tool to perform a soft delete on a customer property definition.

Delete Customer Website

Tool to delete a website for a customer.

Delete Organization

Tool to delete an organization by ID.

Delete Organization Property Customer Tier

Tool to delete a customer tier property definition from organizations.

Delete Saved Reply

Tool to delete a saved reply from a mailbox.

Delete Snooze

Tool to delete a snooze on a conversation.

Delete Social Profile

Tool to delete a social profile for a customer in Help Scout.

Delete Thread Schedule

Tool to unschedule a scheduled thread in a conversation.

Delete Webhook

Tool to permanently delete a webhook subscription from Help Scout.

Download Attachment

Tool to download an attachment file from a Help Scout conversation.

Get Attachment Data

Tool to retrieve attachment data for a specific attachment.

Get Busy Times Report

Tool to get busiest time of day report showing conversation volume by day and hour.

Get Chat Report

Tool to retrieve comprehensive chat report statistics from Help Scout.

Get Company Customers Helped Report

Tool to retrieve company customers helped report showing distinct customer count receiving support.

Get Company Drilldown Report

Tool to retrieve company drilldown report showing underlying conversation data for company statistics.

Get Company Report

Tool to retrieve overall company performance report from Help Scout.

Get Conversation

Tool to retrieve a specific conversation by ID from Help Scout.

Get Conversations Drilldown Report

Tool to get conversations drilldown report from Help Scout.

Get Conversations Field Drilldown Report

Tool to get conversations drilldown by field report from Help Scout.

Get Conversations Report

Tool to get overall conversations report with statistics on conversation volume, channels, and trends.

Get Customer

Tool to get a specific customer by ID from Help Scout.

Get Customer Address

Tool to retrieve a customer's address from Help Scout.

Get Docs Report

Tool to retrieve overall docs performance report from Help Scout.

Get Email Report

Tool to retrieve email report with volume, resolution, and response metrics from Help Scout.

Get First Response Time Report

Tool to retrieve first response time productivity report showing average response duration.

Get Happiness Ratings Report

Tool to retrieve happiness ratings report with customer satisfaction scores and feedback from Help Scout.

Get Happiness Report

Tool to retrieve overall happiness report from Help Scout.

Get Inbox

Tool to retrieve a specific inbox by ID with details including name, email, and timestamps.

Get New Conversations Drilldown Report

Tool to get new conversations drilldown report showing underlying conversation data for new conversations created within a time period.

Get New Conversations Report

Tool to get new conversations report showing conversation counts over time intervals.

Get Organization

Tool to retrieve a specific organization by ID from Help Scout.

Get Organization Conversations

Tool to get conversations associated with an organization in Help Scout.

Get Organization Customers

Tool to get customers associated with an organization in Help Scout.

Get Organization Property

Tool to retrieve a single organization property definition by its slug identifier.

Get Phone Report

Tool to retrieve phone report statistics from Help Scout.

Get Productivity Report

Tool to retrieve productivity overall report showing comprehensive team performance metrics.

Get Received Messages Report

Tool to retrieve received messages statistics report from Help Scout.

Get Replies Sent Report

Tool to get replies sent productivity report showing reply volume metrics over time.

Get Resolution Time Report

Tool to retrieve resolution time productivity report showing average time to resolve conversations.

Get Resolved Report

Tool to retrieve productivity resolved report from Help Scout.

Get Resource Owner

Tool to get the authenticated user's profile information.

Get Routing Configuration

Tool to retrieve routing configuration for a mailbox inbox.

Get Saved Reply

Tool to retrieve a specific saved reply from a mailbox.

Get Tag

Tool to retrieve a specific tag by ID from Help Scout.

Get User

Tool to retrieve a specific user by ID from Help Scout.

Get User Chat Report

Tool to retrieve user/team chat report statistics from Help Scout.

Get User Conversation History

Tool to retrieve detailed conversation history for a specific user over a designated timeframe.

Get User Customers Helped Report

Tool to retrieve user customers helped report showing distinct customer count receiving support from a specific user.

Get User Drilldown Report

Tool to get user drilldown report from Help Scout.

Get User Happiness Report

Tool to retrieve user happiness report from Help Scout.

Get User Ratings Report

Tool to retrieve user happiness ratings drilldown report showing customer satisfaction ratings for a specific user.

Get User Replies Report

Tool to retrieve user replies report showing the number of replies sent by a specific user over time.

Get User Report

Tool to retrieve overall user/team performance report from Help Scout.

Get User Resolutions Report

Tool to retrieve user resolutions report showing the number of conversations resolved by a specific user over time.

Get User Status

Tool to get the status of a user in Help Scout.

Get Volume by Channel Report

Tool to retrieve conversation volume by channel (email, chat, phone) over a specified time period.

Get Webhook

Tool to retrieve a specific webhook by ID from Help Scout.

List Chat Handles

Tool to list all chat handles for a specific customer in Help Scout.

List Conversations

Tool to list and filter conversations from Help Scout.

List Customer Emails

Tool to list all emails for a specific customer in Help Scout.

List Customer Phones

Tool to list all phone numbers for a specific Help Scout customer.

List Customer Properties

Tool to list all customer property definitions.

List Customers

Tool to list customers in Help Scout with optional filters for name, email, or modification date.

List Customer Websites

Tool to list all websites associated with a specific customer in Help Scout.

List Inbox Custom Fields

Tool to list all custom fields configured for a specific inbox.

List Inboxes

Tool to list all mailboxes (inboxes) the user has access to with pagination support.

List Inbox Folders

Tool to retrieve all folders within a specific inbox/mailbox.

List Organizations

Tool to list all organizations (companies) in Help Scout with optional filtering and sorting.

List Organizations Properties

Tool to list all organization property definitions.

List Saved Replies

Tool to list saved replies for a mailbox.

List Social Profiles

Tool to list all social profiles for a customer in Help Scout.

List Tags

Tool to list all tags in Help Scout with pagination support.

List Teams

Tool to list all teams in Help Scout with pagination support.

List Threads

Tool to list all threads for a specific Help Scout conversation.

List Users

Tool to list all users in the Help Scout account with optional filters for mailbox or email.

List Users Status

Tool to list the status of all users including email and chat availability.

List Webhooks

Tool to retrieve all webhooks configured in Help Scout.

List Workflows

Tool to list all workflows (automation rules) in the account with optional filters for mailbox, type, and status.

Overwrite Customer

Tool to overwrite an existing customer in Help Scout, replacing all customer data.

Publish Thread Schedule

Tool to publish a scheduled thread immediately in a Help Scout conversation.

Remove Organization Property Value

Tool to remove an organization property value.

Run Manual Workflow

Tool to run a manual workflow on one or more conversations in Help Scout.

Set Organization Property Value

Tool to set or update a property value for a specific organization.

Set User Status

Tool to set the status of a user in Help Scout.

Update Chat Handle

Tool to update a chat handle for a Help Scout customer.

Update Conversation

Tool to update specific properties of a Help Scout conversation using JSON Patch format.

Update Conversation Tags

Tool to update tags on a conversation in Help Scout.

Update Conversation Thread Schedule

Tool to update an existing schedule for a conversation thread in Help Scout.

Update Customer

Tool to update an existing customer in Help Scout using JSON Patch operations.

Update Customer Address

Tool to update an existing address for a Help Scout customer.

Update customer email

Tool to update an existing email for a customer in Help Scout.

Update Customer Phone

Tool to update an existing phone number for a Help Scout customer.

Update Customer Properties

Tool to update custom property values for a Help Scout customer using JSON Patch operations.

Update Customer Social Profile

Tool to update an existing social profile for a customer in Help Scout.

Update Customer Website

Tool to update an existing website URL for a customer in Help Scout.

Update Custom Fields

Tool to update custom fields on a Help Scout conversation.

Update Mailbox Routing Configuration

Tool to update routing configuration for a mailbox inbox in Help Scout.

Update Organization

Tool to update an organization in Help Scout.

Update Organization Property

Tool to update an organization property definition in Help Scout.

Update Organization Property Industry

Tool to update the industry organization property definition in Help Scout.

Update saved reply

Tool to update an existing saved reply in a Help Scout mailbox.

Update Conversation Snooze

Tool to update or set a snooze on a Help Scout conversation.

Update Thread

Tool to update a specific thread in a Help Scout conversation using JSON Patch format.

Update Webhook

Tool to update an existing webhook subscription in Help Scout.

Update Workflow Status

Tool to update the status of a Help Scout workflow (enable/disable automation rule).

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

With a standalone Help Scout MCP server, the agents and LLMs can only access a fixed set of Help Scout tools tied to that server. However, with the Composio Tool Router, agents can dynamically load tools from Help Scout and many other apps based on the task at hand, all through a single MCP endpoint.

Yes, you can. CrewAI fully supports MCP integration. You get structured tool calling, message history handling, and model orchestration while Tool Router takes care of discovering and serving the right Help Scout tools.

Yes, absolutely. You can configure which Help Scout scopes and actions are allowed when connecting your account to Composio. You can also bring your own OAuth credentials or API configuration so you keep full control over what the agent can do.

All sensitive data such as tokens, keys, and configuration is fully encrypted at rest and in transit. Composio is SOC 2 Type 2 compliant and follows strict security practices so your Help Scout data and credentials are handled as safely as possible.

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