How to integrate Iterable MCP with CrewAI

This guide walks you through connecting Iterable to CrewAI using the Composio tool router. By the end, you'll have a working Iterable agent that can summarize iterable campaign performance today, add customer to welcome journey, update user email subscription status through natural language commands. This guide will help you understand how to give your CrewAI agent real control over a Iterable account through Composio's Iterable MCP server. Before we dive in, let's take a quick look at the key ideas and tools involved.

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Iterable is a cross-channel marketing platform for building campaigns across email, SMS, push, and in-app channels. It helps teams personalize customer journeys and optimize engagement from one place.

116 Tools

Introduction

This guide walks you through connecting Iterable to CrewAI using the Composio tool router. By the end, you'll have a working Iterable agent that can summarize iterable campaign performance today, add customer to welcome journey, update user email subscription status through natural language commands.

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

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

Also integrate Iterable with

TL;DR

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

The Iterable MCP server is an implementation of the Model Context Protocol that connects your AI agent and assistants like Claude, Cursor, etc directly to your Iterable account. It provides structured and secure access to your campaigns, users, catalogs, templates, messages, and analytics, so your agent can create campaigns, manage audiences, update catalogs, control messages, and review performance on your behalf.

  • Campaign creation and control: Have your agent create campaigns from existing templates, activate or deactivate triggered campaigns, cancel scheduled campaigns, archive campaigns, or stop campaigns already running.
  • User and audience management: Let the agent create static lists, update users in bulk, export user events, delete users, or remove a person’s data and prevent future collection.
  • Catalog and content management: Direct your agent to create catalogs, add or update catalog items, inspect catalog content and field mappings, and remove items or entire catalogs.
  • Message and template operations: Instruct your agent to review email, in-app, and embedded message templates, create reusable snippets, list message types, and cancel scheduled email, push, web push, in-app, or WhatsApp messages.
  • Campaign reporting and exports: Have your agent retrieve campaign and experiment metrics, then export campaign analytics in CSV or JSON format for further analysis.

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 Iterable 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 Iterable 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 Iterable MCP URL
6

Create a Composio Tool Router session for Iterable

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

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

Abort Campaign

Abort a running campaign to stop all in-progress message deliveries.

Activate a triggered campaign

Activates a triggered campaign by its unique ID, allowing it to process events and send messages.

Archive Campaigns

Archives one or more campaigns.

Bulk Update Users

Bulk update user data in Iterable.

Cancel Campaign

Cancel a scheduled or recurring campaign in Iterable.

Cancel Email

Cancel a scheduled email to a specific user in Iterable.

Cancel Export

Cancel a queued or running export created with the 'Start export' endpoint.

Cancel In-App Message

Cancel a scheduled in-app message to a specific user in Iterable.

Cancel Push

Cancel a scheduled push notification to a specific user in Iterable.

Cancel Web Push

Cancel a scheduled web push notification to a specific user in Iterable.

Cancel WhatsApp

Cancel a scheduled WhatsApp message to a specific user in Iterable.

Create a new campaign

Creates a new blast or triggered campaign from an existing template.

Create a catalog

Create a catalog with the specified name in Iterable.

Create Catalog Items

Asynchronously creates or updates up to 1000 catalog items with a single request.

Create a new list

Create a new static list in Iterable.

Create snippet

Creates a new code snippet in Iterable.

Deactivate Triggered Campaign

Deactivate a triggered campaign in Iterable.

Bulk delete templates

Bulk delete one or more base templates from Iterable.

Delete a catalog

Delete a catalog by its name.

Delete a Catalog Item

Deletes the specified item from a catalog.

Delete Catalog Items

Asynchronously deletes catalog items from a specified catalog in Iterable.

Delete a list

Delete a list by its listId.

Delete Metadata Table

Asynchronously deletes a metadata table by its table name.

Delete snippet

Deletes a snippet by its ID (numeric) or name (string).

Delete User By ID

Asynchronously deletes a user by userId from Iterable.

Export data to CSV

Export campaign analytics data in CSV format from Iterable.

Export Campaign Data to JSON

Export campaign analytics data in JSON format with one entry per line.

Export User Events

Export all events for a user identified by email or userId.

Forget User

Deletes the specified user's data from the Iterable project and prevents future data collection about them.

Get campaign by ID

Retrieves a campaign by its unique ID.

Get Campaign Metrics

Retrieve performance metrics for one or more campaigns.

Get Catalog Field Mappings

Tool to retrieve field mappings (field to data type) and undefined fields for a catalog in Iterable.

Get catalog item by ID

Retrieves a specific catalog item by its ID from the specified catalog.

Get email template by ID

Get an email template by templateId.

Get Embedded Messages

Retrieves embedded messages for which the specified user is eligible, grouped by placementId.

Get Embedded Template

Retrieves an embedded message template by its unique ID.

Get Experiment Metrics

Retrieve metrics for email experiments.

Get In-App Messages

Get a user's in-app messages from Iterable.

Get in-app template by ID

Retrieves an in-app template by its unique ID.

Get List Size

Get the number of users within a list.

Get push template by ID

Retrieves a push template by its unique ID.

Get SMS template

Retrieves an SMS template by its unique ID.

Get snippet by ID or name

Retrieves a snippet by its ID (numeric) or name (string).

Get template by client template ID

Retrieves an email template by its client-defined template ID.

Get User By ID

Get a user by userId from Iterable.

Get User By ID (Path)

Get a user by userId (path parameter) from Iterable.

Get User Events

Get events for a specific user by userId.

Get User Sent Messages

Get messages sent to a user by email address or userId.

Get Web In-App Messages

Get a user's web in-app messages from Iterable.

List all campaigns

Retrieves metadata about all campaigns in a project with optional pagination.

List Catalog Items

Get the catalog items for a catalog.

List Catalogs

Tool to retrieve all catalog names from Iterable.

List Channels

Get all message channels within the Iterable project.

List export files

Get the job status and files for an export started with the 'Start export' endpoint.

List Export Jobs

Retrieve a list of recent export jobs for the current project.

List Forgotten User IDs

Get hashed user IDs of forgotten users for GDPR compliance.

List Journeys

Get a list of journeys (workflows) within your Iterable project.

List Lists

Retrieve all lists within a project.

List List Users

Get all users within a list.

List Message Types

Lists all message types within a project.

List Metadata Keys

List all keys in a metadata table.

List Metadata Tables

List available metadata tables in Iterable.

List recurring campaign child campaigns

Retrieve the child campaigns generated by a recurring campaign.

List Snippets

Get all snippets for the current project.

List all templates

Retrieves metadata about all templates in a project with optional pagination.

List User Fields

Get all user fields within a project.

List Webhooks

Get all webhooks configured within the Iterable project.

Merge Users

Merge two user profiles in Iterable.

Preview email template

Generate a fully rendered HTML preview of an email template using custom data.

Preview in-app template

Generate a fully rendered HTML preview of an in-app template using custom data.

Preview List Users

Get a random sample of up to 5000 users within a list.

Replace Catalog Item

Asynchronously creates or replaces the specified catalog item in the given catalog.

Replace Metadata Item

Asynchronously creates or replaces the metadata item associated with the specified key.

Schedule Campaign

Schedule an existing campaign to be sent at a specified time.

Send Campaign

Send an existing campaign immediately in Iterable.

Send email template proof

Send a proof of an email template to a specific user.

Send in-app notification to target

Send an in-app notification to a specific user using Iterable.

Send in-app template proof

Send a proof of an in-app template to a specific user using Iterable.

Send push to target

Send a push notification to a specific user using Iterable.

Send push template proof

Send a proof of a push template to a specific user.

Send SMS template proof

Send a proof of an SMS template to a specific user.

Send WhatsApp to target

Send a WhatsApp message to a specific user using Iterable.

Start Export

Start a data export job.

Subscribe to List

Subscribe one or more users to a specific list in Iterable.

Subscribe User By ID

Subscribes a user to the specified subscription group by their userId.

Track Embedded Click

Tracks a click event on an embedded message.

Track Embedded Received

Track that an embedded message was received on a device.

Track Embedded Session

Tracks an embedded message session and related impressions in Iterable.

Track Event

Track an event in Iterable.

Track Events in Bulk

Track multiple events in bulk in Iterable.

Track Purchase

Track a purchase event in Iterable.

Trigger Campaign

Trigger a campaign to send to one or more lists of recipients.

Trigger Journey

Trigger a journey (workflow) in Iterable for a specific user or list.

Unforget User

Unforgets a previously forgotten user in Iterable, resuming data collection.

Unsubscribe from list

Remove users from a list.

Unsubscribe User By ID

Unsubscribes a user from the specified subscription group by their userId.

Update Shopping Cart

Update a user's shopping cart items in Iterable.

Update Catalog Field Mappings

Set a catalog's field mappings (data types) in Iterable.

Update Catalog Item

Asynchronously creates or updates the specified catalog item in the given catalog.

Update email template

Update an existing email template in Iterable.

Update Embedded Template

Updates an embedded message template with the specified fields.

Update in-app template

Update an existing in-app template in Iterable.

Update push template

Updates an existing push template in Iterable.

Update SMS template

Update an existing SMS template in Iterable.

Update snippet by ID or name

Updates an existing snippet by ID (numeric) or creates/updates a snippet by name (string).

Update User

Update user data or add a user if none exists in Iterable.

Update User Email

Updates a user's email address in Iterable.

Update User Subscriptions

Updates user subscription preferences in Iterable.

Bulk Update User Subscriptions

Bulk update subscription preferences for multiple users in Iterable.

Update Webhook

Update an existing webhook configuration in Iterable.

Upsert email template

Create or update an email template in Iterable.

Upsert Embedded Template

Creates an embedded message template if it doesn't exist, or updates all embedded message templates that match the provided clientTemplateId.

Upsert in-app template

Create or update an in-app template in Iterable.

Upsert push template

Create or update a push template in Iterable.

Upsert SMS template

Create or update an SMS template in Iterable.

Verify SMS Code

Verifies an SMS verification code sent to a phone number in Iterable.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

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

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

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