How to integrate Instantly MCP with CrewAI

This guide walks you through connecting Instantly to CrewAI using the Composio tool router. By the end, you'll have a working Instantly agent that can create a new cold email campaign, add a new lead to your campaign, check unread emails in your inbox through natural language commands. This guide will help you understand how to give your CrewAI agent real control over a Instantly account through Composio's Instantly MCP server. Before we dive in, let's take a quick look at the key ideas and tools involved.

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Instantly is a platform for automating cold email outreach, managing leads, and optimizing deliverability. Get better results from email campaigns with minimal manual effort.

115 Tools

Introduction

This guide walks you through connecting Instantly to CrewAI using the Composio tool router. By the end, you'll have a working Instantly agent that can create a new cold email campaign, add a new lead to your campaign, check unread emails in your inbox through natural language commands.

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

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

Also integrate Instantly with

OpenAI Agents SDKClaude Agent SDKClaude CodeClaude CoworkCodexOpenClawHermesCLIGoogle ADKLangChainVercel AI SDKMastra AILlamaIndex

TL;DR

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

The Instantly MCP server is an implementation of the Model Context Protocol that connects your AI agent and assistants like Claude, Cursor, etc directly to your Instantly account. It provides structured and secure access to your campaigns, leads, and outreach tools, so your agent can perform actions like launching new campaigns, managing leads, tracking inbox statistics, and handling API credentials on your behalf.

  • Automated campaign creation and management: Ask your agent to launch new cold email campaigns or update existing ones, streamlining your outreach workflow without manual setup.
  • Lead and lead list management: Let your agent add new leads, organize them into lists, or enrich them with AI-driven insights to maximize your campaign effectiveness.
  • Email verification and deliverability tracking: Direct your agent to check the verification status of email addresses or run inbox placement tests to monitor and improve deliverability across providers.
  • Inbox activity monitoring: Fetch unread email counts or campaign engagement metrics, helping you stay on top of your outreach performance in real time.
  • API key and webhook automation: Have your agent create or delete API keys for secure integrations, or set up webhooks to receive instant notifications about important Instantly events.

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 Instantly 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 Instantly 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 Instantly MCP URL
6

Create a Composio Tool Router session for Instantly

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

url = session.mcp.url
What's happening:
  • You create a Instantly only session through Composio
  • Composio returns an MCP HTTP URL that exposes Instantly 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 Instantly 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=["instantly"],
)
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 Instantly through Composio's Tool Router. The agent can perform Instantly 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 Instantly action and event your agent gets out of the box.

Check Custom Tracking Domain Status

Tool to check Custom Tracking Domain (CTD) status for email accounts.

Activate Campaign

Tool to activate or resume a paused campaign.

Add Leads in Bulk

Tool to add multiple leads in bulk to a campaign or list.

Get API Keys

Tool to retrieve paginated list of API keys for organization.

Bulk Assign Leads

Tool to bulk assign leads to organization users.

Get Campaigns Analytics Overview

Tool to get analytics overview for one or multiple campaigns.

Import Campaign from Export

Tool to import a campaign from exported data.

Check DFY Email Account Order Domains

Tool to check domain availability for DFY email account orders.

Check Email Verification Status

Tool to check status of an email verification job.

Count Launched Campaigns

Tool to retrieve the count of launched campaigns.

Count Leads from SuperSearch

Tool to count leads matching supersearch filter criteria.

Count Unread Emails

Tool to retrieve the count of unread emails.

Create AI Enrichment

Tool to create an AI enrichment job for a campaign or lead list.

Create API Key

Creates a new API key with specified permissions for the Instantly API.

Create Block List Entry

Tool to create a new block list entry for a specific email or domain.

Create Campaign

Tool to create a new campaign.

Create Custom Tag

Tool to create a new custom tag for organizing accounts and campaigns.

Create Inbox Placement Test

Tool to create an inbox placement test.

Create Lead

Tool to create a new lead.

Create Lead List

Tool to create a new lead list.

Create Subsequence

Creates an automated follow-up subsequence for a campaign.

Create SuperSearch Enrichment

Tool to create a supersearch enrichment job for a list or campaign.

Create Webhook

Tool to create a new webhook endpoint.

Delete API Key

Tool to delete an API key.

Delete Block List Entry

Tool to delete a blocked email or domain entry by its ID.

Delete Campaign

Tool to delete a campaign.

Delete Custom Tag

Tool to delete a custom tag by its ID.

Delete Lead

Tool to delete a lead by its ID.

Delete Lead Label

Tool to delete a lead label by ID.

Delete Lead List

Tool to delete a lead list by ID.

Delete Subsequence

Delete a subsequence from a campaign by its UUID.

Delete Webhook

Tool to delete a webhook.

Delete Whitelabel Domain

Tool to delete the whitelabel domain from current workspace.

List Pre-warmed Up DFY Domains

Tool to retrieve a list of pre-warmed up domains ready for DFY email account orders.

Disable Account Warmup

Tool to disable the warm-up process for email accounts.

Duplicate Campaign

Tool to duplicate an existing campaign.

Duplicate Subsequence

Tool to duplicate an existing subsequence to a specified parent campaign.

Enable Account Warmup

Tool to enable the warm-up process for email accounts.

Export Campaign

Tool to export campaign data to JSON format.

Get Account Campaign Mappings

Tool to retrieve campaigns associated with an email account.

Get Daily Account Analytics

Tool to retrieve daily account analytics showing emails sent per day for each account.

Get Accounts Warmup Analytics

Tool to retrieve warmup analytics for specified email accounts.

Get Audit Logs

Tool to retrieve audit log records for tracking system activities.

Get Block List Entry

Tool to retrieve a specific blocked email or domain entry by its ID.

Get Campaign

Tool to retrieve campaign details.

Get Campaign Analytics

Tool to retrieve analytics for campaigns.

Get Campaign Sending Status

Tool to retrieve campaign sending status diagnostics explaining why a campaign may not be sending emails or is sending slower than expected.

Get Campaign Steps Analytics

Tool to retrieve analytics data broken down by campaign steps and variants.

Get Current Workspace

Tool to retrieve current workspace details based on API key.

Get Custom Tag

Tool to retrieve a specific custom tag by ID.

Get Custom Tag Mappings

Tool to retrieve custom tag mappings that connect tags to resources like campaigns and email accounts.

Get Daily Campaign Analytics

Tool to retrieve daily analytics for a campaign.

Get DFY Email Account Order Accounts

Tool to retrieve DFY (Done-For-You) email account order accounts.

Get Email Service Provider Options

Tool to retrieve email service provider options for inbox placement tests.

Get Inbox Placement Analytics Stats By Date

Tool to retrieve time-series statistics for inbox placement test results by date.

Get Inbox Placement Test

Tool to retrieve inbox placement test results.

Get Lead

Tool to retrieve details of a specific lead by its ID.

Get Lead Label

Tool to retrieve a specific lead label by ID.

Get Lead List

Tool to retrieve details of a specific lead list by its ID.

Get CRM Phone Numbers

Tool to retrieve all phone numbers associated with your organization.

Get Similar DFY Email Account Order Domains

Tool to generate similar available domain suggestions for DFY email account orders.

Get Subsequence

Tool to retrieve a specific subsequence by its ID.

Get SuperSearch Enrichment

Tool to retrieve supersearch enrichment configuration and status for a list or campaign.

Get Lead List Verification Stats

Tool to retrieve verification statistics for a lead list.

Get Webhook

Tool to retrieve details of a specific webhook subscription.

Get Webhook Event

Tool to retrieve details of a specific webhook event.

Get Webhook Events Summary

Tool to retrieve webhook events summary with success and failure statistics.

Get Webhook Events Summary By Date

Tool to retrieve webhook event summaries grouped by date.

Get Webhook Event Types

Tool to retrieve all available webhook event types.

Get Workspace Billing Plan Details

Tool to retrieve workspace billing plan details.

Get Inbox Placement Deliverability Insights

Tool to retrieve deliverability insights for inbox placement tests.

Get Inbox Placement Analytics Stats By Test ID

Tool to retrieve aggregated inbox placement analytics statistics for specified test IDs.

Create Lead Label

Tool to create a custom lead label for categorizing leads.

List Email Accounts

Tool to list all email accounts for the authenticated user.

List Block List Entries

Tool to list blocked emails or domains from blocklist.

List Campaigns

Tool to list all campaigns.

List Custom Tags

Tool to list custom tags.

List DFY Email Account Orders

Tool to list DFY email account orders.

List Emails

Tool to list emails.

List Inbox Placement Blacklist & SpamAssassin Reports

Tool to list inbox placement blacklist & SpamAssassin reports.

List Inbox Placement Tests

Tool to list inbox placement tests.

List Lead Lists

Tool to list all lead lists.

List Leads

Tool to list leads.

List Webhook Events

Tool to list webhook events.

List Webhooks

Tool to list configured webhooks.

Mark Thread As Read

Tool to mark all emails in a specific thread as read.

Merge Leads

Tool to merge multiple leads into a single lead.

Move Leads

Tool to move leads from one campaign to another.

Update Lead Label

Tool to update an existing lead label by ID.

Patch SuperSearch Enrichment Settings

Tool to update auto-update and skip settings for SuperSearch enrichment.

Patch Webhook

Tool to update an existing webhook configuration.

Pause Campaign

Tool to pause an active campaign.

Pause Subsequence

Tool to pause an active campaign subsequence.

Remove Lead From Subsequence

Tool to remove a lead from a campaign subsequence.

Resume Subsequence

Tool to resume a paused campaign subsequence.

Search Campaigns by Lead Email

Tool to search campaigns by a lead's email address.

Set Whitelabel Domain

Tool to set whitelabel agency domain for current workspace.

Share Campaign

Tool to share a campaign.

Run SuperSearch Enrichment

Tool to run all enrichments for resource leads or unenriched leads.

Test Accounts Vitals

Tool to test IMAP/SMTP connectivity and account vitals for email accounts.

Test Webhook

Tool to send a test payload to verify a webhook is working.

Toggle Resource

Tool to assign or unassign custom tags to resources like accounts and campaigns.

Update Block List Entry

Tool to update a blocked email or domain entry.

Update Campaign

Tool to update details of a campaign.

Update Custom Tag

Tool to update an existing custom tag's label or description.

Update Inbox Placement Test

Tool to update an inbox placement test.

Update Lead

Tool to update a lead's details.

Update Lead Interest Status

Tool to update a lead's interest status.

Update Lead List

Tool to update details of a specific lead list by its ID.

Update Subsequence

Tool to update a campaign subsequence entity.

Update Current Workspace

Tool to update the current workspace details.

Verify Email

Tool to initiate email verification.

Get Admin Workspace Group Member

Tool to retrieve admin workspace details for the current sub workspace.

Get Workspace Member by ID

Tool to retrieve details of a specific workspace member by ID.

Add Workspace Member

Tool to add a new member to workspace with email and role.

FRAMEWORKS

How to build Instantly MCP Agent with another framework

OpenAI Agents SDK logo

OpenAI Agents SDK

Use Instantly MCP with OpenAI Agents SDK

Claude Agent SDK logo

Claude Agent SDK

Use Instantly MCP with Claude Agent SDK

Claude Code logo

Claude Code

Use Instantly MCP with Claude Code

Claude Cowork logo

Claude Cowork

Use Instantly MCP with Claude Cowork

Codex logo

Codex

Use Instantly MCP with Codex

OpenClaw logo

OpenClaw

Use Instantly MCP with OpenClaw

Hermes logo

Hermes

Use Instantly MCP with Hermes

CLI logo

CLI

Use Instantly MCP with CLI

Google ADK logo

Google ADK

Use Instantly MCP with Google ADK

LangChain logo

LangChain

Use Instantly MCP with LangChain

Vercel AI SDK logo

Vercel AI SDK

Use Instantly MCP with Vercel AI SDK

Mastra AI logo

Mastra AI

Use Instantly MCP with Mastra AI

LlamaIndex logo

LlamaIndex

Use Instantly MCP with LlamaIndex

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

With a standalone Instantly MCP server, the agents and LLMs can only access a fixed set of Instantly tools tied to that server. However, with the Composio Tool Router, agents can dynamically load tools from Instantly 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 Instantly tools.

Yes, absolutely. You can configure which Instantly 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 Instantly data and credentials are handled as safely as possible.

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Karan skipped his own birthday party to fix our critical issue. It was 10pm and he diverted his Waymo to help us instead. This really sets the bar — it shows the commitment you need when users rely on your software.

Harsha Gaddipati
Harsha Gaddipati
Co-founder, Slashy

A lot of students tell us that the moment their connected tools start talking to each other inside Opennote feels almost magical. The agent just knows them, and it's immensely helped keep new users on the platform.

Abhi Arya
Abhi Arya
Co-founder, Opennote

We chose Composio over Pipedream because it delivered depth where it mattered — niche tools and tricky edge cases other platforms simply ignored. That gave us confidence to scale without compromising.

Nirman Dave
Nirman Dave
CEO, Zams

As a solo builder, shipping fast is life or death. The only way I can outcompete incumbents is by outmanoeuvring them. Getting bogged down managing agent auth would have been a death sentence.

Ryan Yu
Ryan Yu
Founder, Extra Thursday

Before Composio, adding tool integrations was slow and resource-intensive. Each one could take weeks of engineering time, and maintaining them meant constantly keeping up with API changes.

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Tomisin Jenrola
Founder & CEO, SwarmZero

With hands-on help from their founder, we integrated Gmail and Google Drive in just 30 minutes. This level of personal support and commitment is exactly what startups should strive for.

Jerome Leclanche
Jerome Leclanche
Co-Founder, Ingram Technologies
Instantly MCP Integration with CrewAI | Composio