How to integrate Ahrefs MCP with Claude Agent SDK

This guide walks you through connecting Ahrefs to the Claude Agent SDK using the Composio tool router. By the end, you'll have a working Ahrefs agent that can get domain rating trend for competitor site, list all broken backlinks for your website, find keyword volume for 'ai tools' in us through natural language commands. This guide will help you understand how to give your Claude Agent SDK agent real control over a Ahrefs account through Composio's Ahrefs MCP server. Before we dive in, let's take a quick look at the key ideas and tools involved.

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Ahrefs

Api Key

Ahrefs is an SEO and marketing platform for site audits, keyword research, and competitor insights. It helps you improve search rankings and drive organic traffic.

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Introduction

This guide will help you understand how to give your Claude Agent SDK agent real control over a Ahrefs account through Composio's Ahrefs MCP server.

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

Also integrate Ahrefs with

OpenAI Agents SDK Claude Code Claude Cowork Codex OpenClaw Hermes CLI Google ADK LangChain Vercel AI SDK Mastra AI LlamaIndex CrewAI

TL;DR

Here's what you'll learn:

Get and set up your Claude/Anthropic and Composio API keys
Install the necessary dependencies
Initialize Composio and create a Tool Router session for Ahrefs
Configure an AI agent that can use Ahrefs as a tool
Run a live chat session where you can ask the agent to perform Ahrefs operations

What is Claude Agent SDK?

The Claude Agent SDK is Anthropic's official framework for building AI agents powered by Claude. It provides a streamlined interface for creating agents with MCP tool support and conversation management.

Key features include:

Native MCP Support: Built-in support for Model Context Protocol servers
Permission Modes: Control tool execution permissions
Streaming Responses: Real-time response streaming for interactive applications
Context Manager: Clean async context management for sessions

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

The Ahrefs MCP server is an implementation of the Model Context Protocol that connects your AI agent and assistants like Claude, Cursor, etc directly to your Ahrefs account. It provides structured and secure access to your SEO and marketing data, so your agent can perform actions like analyzing backlinks, researching keywords, auditing domain authority, and uncovering competitive insights on your behalf.

Comprehensive backlink analysis: Instantly retrieve detailed backlink profiles, stats, and broken link data for any website to inform your SEO strategy or spot link-building opportunities.
Keyword research and trends: Explore keyword overviews, search volumes by country, and discover matching or related terms to optimize content and target the right audience.
Domain authority tracking: Fetch up-to-date domain ratings or track historical changes to monitor the SEO health and growth of your own sites or competitors over time.
Batch competitor and site analysis: Analyze up to 100 domains or URLs at once to compare SEO metrics, spot weaknesses, and benchmark your performance against competitors efficiently.
Outbound link and partnership insights: Identify all external domains a site links to, helping you understand content strategy, partnerships, and potential link-building prospects.

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:

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

Step-by-step Guide

Step by step09 STEPS

Prerequisites

Before starting, make sure you have:

Composio API Key and Claude/Anthropic API Key
Primary know-how of Claude Agents SDK
A Ahrefs account
Some knowledge of Python

Getting API Keys for Claude/Anthropic and Composio

Claude/Anthropic API Key

Go to the Anthropic Console and create an API key. You'll need credits to use the models.
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.

Install dependencies

npm install @anthropic-ai/claude-agent-sdk @composio/core dotenv

Install the Composio SDK and the Claude Agents SDK.

What's happening:

@composio/core provides Composio integration for Anthropic
@anthropic-ai/claude-agent-sdk is the core agent framework
dotenv/config loads environment variables

Set up environment variables

bash

COMPOSIO_API_KEY=your_composio_api_key_here
USER_ID=your_user_id_here
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=your_anthropic_api_key_here

Create a .env file in your project root.

What's happening:

COMPOSIO_API_KEY authenticates with Composio
USER_ID identifies the user for session management
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY authenticates with Anthropic/Claude

Import dependencies

import 'dotenv/config';
import readline from 'node:readline';
import { Composio } from '@composio/core';
import { query, type Options } from "@anthropic-ai/claude-agent-sdk";

dotenv.config();

What's happening:

We're importing all necessary libraries including the Claude Agent SDK and Composio
The dotenv.config() function loads environment variables from your .env file
This setup prepares the foundation for connecting Claude with Ahrefs functionality

Create a Composio instance and Tool Router session

async function chat() {
  const { COMPOSIO_API_KEY, USER_ID } = process.env;
  if (!COMPOSIO_API_KEY || !USER_ID) {
    throw new Error('COMPOSIO_API_KEY and USER_ID required in .env');
  }

  const composio = new Composio({ apiKey: COMPOSIO_API_KEY });

  // Create Tool Router session for Ahrefs
  const session = await composio.create(USER_ID, {
    toolkits: ['ahrefs'],
  });
  const mcpUrl = session?.mcp.url;

What's happening:

The function checks for the required COMPOSIO_API_KEY environment variable
We're creating a Composio instance using our API key
The create method creates a Tool Router session for Ahrefs
The returned url is the MCP server URL that your agent will use

Configure Claude Agent with MCP

const options: Options = {
  permissionMode: 'bypassPermissions',
  mcpServers: {
    composio: {
      type: 'http',
      url: mcpUrl,
      headers: { 'x-api-key': COMPOSIO_API_KEY }
    }
  },
  systemPrompt: 'You are a helpful assistant with access to Ahrefs tools via Composio.',
  maxTurns: 10,
};

What's happening:

We're configuring the Claude Agent options with the MCP server URL
permissionMode: 'bypassPermissions' allows the agent to execute operations without asking for permission each time
The system prompt instructs the agent that it has access to Ahrefs
maxTurns: 10 limits the conversation length to prevent excessive API usage

Create client and start chat loop

const rl = readline.createInterface({
    input: process.stdin,
    output: process.stdout,
    prompt: 'You: '
  });

  console.log('\nChat started. Type "exit" to quit.\n');

  let isProcessing = false;

  async function ask(prompt: string) {
    isProcessing = true;
    rl.pause();

    process.stdout.write('Claude is thinking...');
    const stream = query({ prompt, options });

    let firstChunk = true;
    for await (const msg of stream) {
      const content = (msg as any).message?.content || (msg as any).content;
      if (Array.isArray(content)) {
        for (const block of content) {
          if (block.type === 'text' && block.text) {
            if (firstChunk) {
              process.stdout.write('\r\x1b[K');
              process.stdout.write('Claude: ');
              firstChunk = false;
            }
            process.stdout.write(block.text);
          }
        }
      }
    }
    process.stdout.write('\n\n');

    isProcessing = false;
    rl.resume();
    rl.prompt();
  }

  rl.on('line', async (line) => {
    if (isProcessing) return;

    const input = line.trim();
    if (input === 'exit') {
      rl.close();
      process.exit(0);
    }
    if (input) await ask(input);
    else rl.prompt();
  });

  await ask('What can you help me with?');
}

What's happening:

The readline interface is created to handle user input and output
The query function is used to send the user's input to the agent
The chat loop continues until the user types 'exit' or 'quit'

Run the application

try {
  await chat();
} catch (error) {
  console.error(error);
  process.exit(1);
}

What's happening:

The chat function is the entry point for the application
The try-catch block is used to handle any errors that occur

Complete Code

Here's the complete code to get you started with Ahrefs and Claude Agent SDK:

import 'dotenv/config';
import readline from 'node:readline';
import { Composio } from '@composio/core';
import { query, type Options } from "@anthropic-ai/claude-agent-sdk";

async function chat() {
  const { COMPOSIO_API_KEY, USER_ID } = process.env;
  if (!COMPOSIO_API_KEY || !USER_ID) {
    throw new Error('COMPOSIO_API_KEY and USER_ID required in .env');
  }

  const composio = new Composio({ apiKey: COMPOSIO_API_KEY });
  const session = await composio.create(USER_ID, {
    toolkits: ['ahrefs']
  });
  const mcp_url = session?.mcp.url;

  const options: Options = {
    permissionMode: 'bypassPermissions',
    mcpServers: {
      composio: {
        type: 'http',
        url: mcp_url,
        headers: { 'x-api-key': COMPOSIO_API_KEY }
      }
    },
    systemPrompt: 'You are a helpful assistant with access to Ahrefs tools via Composio.',
    maxTurns: 10,
  };

  const rl = readline.createInterface({
    input: process.stdin,
    output: process.stdout,
    prompt: 'You: '
  });

  console.log('\nChat started. Type "exit" to quit.\n');

  let isProcessing = false;

  async function ask(prompt: string) {
    isProcessing = true;
    rl.pause();

    process.stdout.write('Claude is thinking...');
    const stream = query({ prompt, options });

    let firstChunk = true;
    for await (const msg of stream) {
      const content = (msg as any).message?.content || (msg as any).content;
      if (Array.isArray(content)) {
        for (const block of content) {
          if (block.type === 'text' && block.text) {
            if (firstChunk) {
              process.stdout.write('\r\x1b[K');
              process.stdout.write('Claude: ');
              firstChunk = false;
            }
            process.stdout.write(block.text);
          }
        }
      }
    }
    process.stdout.write('\n\n');

    isProcessing = false;
    rl.resume();
    rl.prompt();
  }

  rl.on('line', async (line) => {
    if (isProcessing) return;

    const input = line.trim();
    if (input === 'exit') {
      rl.close();
      process.exit(0);
    }
    if (input) await ask(input);
    else rl.prompt();
  });

  await ask('What can you help me with?');
}

try {
  await chat();
} catch (error) {
  console.error(error);
  process.exit(1);
}

Conclusion

You've successfully built a Claude Agent SDK agent that can interact with Ahrefs through Composio's Tool Router.

Key features:

Native MCP support through Claude's agent framework
Streaming responses for real-time interaction
Permission bypass for smooth automated workflows

You can extend this by adding more toolkits, implementing custom business logic, or building a web interface around the agent.

TOOLS

Supported Tools

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

Backlinks stats retrieval

Retrieves comprehensive backlink statistics for a specified website or URL using Ahrefs' Site Explorer tool.

Batch Url Analysis

Performs a batch analysis on multiple URLs or domains using Ahrefs' powerful SEO metrics.

Domain rating for site explorer

Retrieves the Domain Rating (DR) for a specified domain.

Domain rating history

Retrieves the historical Domain Rating (DR) data for a specified domain over time.

Explore keywords overview

Retrieves a comprehensive overview of keyword data from Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer tool.

Explore keyword volume by country

Retrieves the search volume data for specified keywords across different countries using Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer tool.

Explore linked domains of a site

Retrieves a list of external domains that the specified target website or URL links to, using Ahrefs' Site Explorer functionality.

Explore matching terms for keywords

The keywords_explorer_matching_terms endpoint retrieves a list of keyword phrases that match or contain the specified keyword from Ahrefs' vast database.

Fetch all backlinks

Retrieves a comprehensive list of backlinks for a specified website or URL using Ahrefs' Site Explorer tool.

Fetch broken backlinks data

Retrieves a list of broken backlinks for a specified website using Ahrefs' Site Explorer tool.

Fetch competitors overview

Retrieves a comprehensive overview of competitor data in relation to keyword rankings and organic search performance.

Fetch rank tracker overview

The GetRankTrackerOverview endpoint retrieves a comprehensive summary of keyword rankings and SEO performance data from Ahrefs' Rank Tracker tool.

Fetch site explorer referring domains

Retrieves a list of domains that have backlinks pointing to a specified target website.

Fetch total search volume history

Retrieves the historical total search volume data for specified keywords using Ahrefs' Site Explorer tool.

Get serp overview

Retrieves a comprehensive overview of Search Engine Results Pages (SERP) data for specified keywords or queries.

Get site audit projects

Retrieves a list of Site Audit projects associated with the authenticated Ahrefs account.

Get site explorer country metrics

Retrieves country-specific Site Explorer metrics for a given website from Ahrefs.

Get site explorer linked anchors external

The site-explorer-linked-anchors-external endpoint retrieves data about external anchor texts linking to a specified target website.

Get url rating history

Retrieves the historical URL Rating data for a specified URL over time.

Linked anchors explorer

Retrieves information about internal linked anchors for a specified website using the Ahrefs API.

List best by external links

The 'get_best_by_external_links' endpoint retrieves a list of pages from a specified website, ranked by the number of external links pointing to them.

Pages by traffic overview

Retrieves a list of pages from a specified website, ordered by their estimated organic search traffic.

Retrieve anchor data

Retrieves anchor text data for a specified website or URL using Ahrefs' Site Explorer tool.

Retrieve best by internal links

Retrieves data on the best-performing internal links within a specified website using Ahrefs' Site Explorer feature.

Retrieve crawler ip ranges

Retrieves the list of IP address ranges used by Ahrefs' web crawler (AhrefsBot).

Retrieve organic competitors

The GetOrganicCompetitors endpoint in the Ahrefs API provides a comprehensive analysis of websites competing for organic search rankings with a specified target domain.

Retrieve organic keywords

Retrieves organic keywords data for a specified website using Ahrefs' Site Explorer tool.

Retrieve outlinks stats

Retrieves comprehensive statistics about outgoing links (outlinks) from a specified website using Ahrefs' Site Explorer tool.

Retrieve paid pages data

Retrieves information about paid pages (PPC advertising) for a specified website using Ahrefs' Site Explorer tool.

Retrieve public crawler ips

Retrieves a list of IP addresses currently used by AhrefsBot, Ahrefs' web crawler.

Retrieve related terms

The keywords_explorer_related_terms endpoint retrieves a list of related terms for a given keyword using Ahrefs' extensive keyword database.

Retrieve site explorer keywords history

Retrieves historical keyword performance data for a specified website or domain using Ahrefs' Site Explorer.

Retrieve site explorer metrics

The GetSiteExplorerMetrics endpoint retrieves comprehensive SEO metrics for a specified website using Ahrefs' Site Explorer tool.

Retrieve site explorer metrics history

Retrieves historical SEO metrics data for a specified website over a given time period.

Retrieve site explorer pages history

The get_site_explorer_pages_history endpoint retrieves historical data about specific pages or domains from Ahrefs' Site Explorer.

Retrieve site explorer referring domains history

Retrieves the historical data of referring domains for a specified website or URL over time.

Retrieve subscription limits and usage

Retrieves detailed information about the current subscription limits and usage for an Ahrefs account.

Retrieve top pages from site explorer

Retrieves data about the top-performing pages of a specified website using Ahrefs' Site Explorer tool.

Retrieve volume history

Retrieves the historical search volume data for a specified keyword using Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer tool.

Search suggestions explorer

Retrieves search suggestions for a given keyword or phrase using Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer tool.

FRAMEWORKS

How to build Ahrefs MCP Agent with another framework

OpenAI Agents SDK

Use Ahrefs MCP with OpenAI Agents SDK

Claude Code

Use Ahrefs MCP with Claude Code

Claude Cowork

Use Ahrefs MCP with Claude Cowork

Codex

Use Ahrefs MCP with Codex

OpenClaw

Use Ahrefs MCP with OpenClaw

Hermes

Use Ahrefs MCP with Hermes

CLI

Use Ahrefs MCP with CLI

Google ADK

Use Ahrefs MCP with Google ADK

LangChain

Use Ahrefs MCP with LangChain

Vercel AI SDK

Use Ahrefs MCP with Vercel AI SDK

Mastra AI

Use Ahrefs MCP with Mastra AI

LlamaIndex

Use Ahrefs MCP with LlamaIndex

CrewAI

Use Ahrefs MCP with CrewAI

MORE TOOLKITS

Explore Other Toolkits

Toolkit marketplace

Oauth2

Reddit is a social news platform with thriving user-driven communities (subreddits). It's the go-to place for discussion, content sharing, and viral marketing.

Facebook

Oauth2

Facebook is a social media and advertising platform for businesses and creators. It helps you connect, share, and manage content across your public Facebook Pages.

Oauth2

LinkedIn is a professional networking platform for connecting, sharing content, and engaging with business opportunities. It's the go-to place for building your professional brand and unlocking new career connections.

Active campaign

Api Key

ActiveCampaign is a marketing automation and CRM platform for managing email campaigns, sales pipelines, and customer segmentation. It helps businesses engage customers and drive growth through smart automation and targeted outreach.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

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

Yes, you can. Claude Agent SDK 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 Ahrefs tools.

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

Start with Ahrefs.It takes 30 seconds.

Managed auth, hosted MCP servers, and every Ahrefs tool your agent needs.Free to start.

Start building

Customer stories

Teams ship real agents on Composio

GET STARTED FOR FREE BOOK A DEMO

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Co-Founder, Ingram Technologies

How to integrate Ahrefs MCP with Claude Agent SDK

Connect Ahrefs without auth hassles

Introduction

Also integrate Ahrefs with

TL;DR

What is Claude Agent SDK?

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

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

What is Composio SDK?

How the Composio SDK works

Step-by-step Guide

Prerequisites

Getting API Keys for Claude/Anthropic and Composio

Install dependencies

Set up environment variables

Import dependencies

Create a Composio instance and Tool Router session

Configure Claude Agent with MCP

Create client and start chat loop

Run the application

Complete Code

Conclusion

Supported Tools

How to build Ahrefs MCP Agent with another framework

OpenAI Agents SDK

Claude Code

Claude Cowork

Codex

OpenClaw

Hermes

CLI

Google ADK

LangChain

Vercel AI SDK

Mastra AI

LlamaIndex

CrewAI

Explore Other Toolkits

Reddit

Facebook

Linkedin

Active campaign

Frequently asked questions

What are the differences in Tool Router MCP and Ahrefs MCP?+

Can I use Tool Router MCP with Claude Agent SDK?+

Can I manage the permissions and scopes for Ahrefs while using Tool Router?+

How safe is my data with Composio Tool Router?+

Start with Ahrefs.It takes 30 seconds.

Teams ship real agents on Composio