How to integrate Excel MCP with CrewAI

This guide walks you through connecting Excel to CrewAI using the Composio tool router. By the end, you'll have a working Excel agent that can add sales data row to q2 table, create bar chart from revenue column, share this workbook with your manager through natural language commands. This guide will help you understand how to give your CrewAI agent real control over a Excel account through Composio's Excel MCP server. Before we dive in, let's take a quick look at the key ideas and tools involved.

Get started for free Get a demo

Excel

Oauth2S2s Oauth2

Microsoft Excel is a robust spreadsheet application for organizing, analyzing, and visualizing data. It's the go-to tool for calculations, reporting, and flexible data management.

54 Tools

Managed auth

Connect Excel without auth hassles

We manage OAuth, API keys, token refresh, and scopes — you just build.

Try for free

Introduction

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

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

Also integrate Excel with

ChatGPT OpenAI Agents SDK Claude Agent SDK Claude Code Claude Cowork Codex OpenCode Cursor VS Code OpenClaw Hermes CLI Google ADK LangChain Vercel AI SDK Mastra AI LlamaIndex

TL;DR

Here's what you'll learn:

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

The Excel MCP server is an implementation of the Model Context Protocol that connects your AI agent and assistants like Claude, Cursor, etc directly to your Excel account. It provides structured and secure access to your spreadsheets, so your agent can perform actions like adding data, creating tables, managing worksheets, generating charts, and sharing workbooks on your behalf.

Automated data entry and updates: Let your agent add rows, columns, or clear specific ranges in any worksheet—keeping your data fresh, organized, and accurate.
Effortless table and worksheet management: Direct your agent to create tables, add new worksheets, or organize data structures for seamless tracking and reporting.
Dynamic chart generation: Have your agent visualize your data instantly by adding charts to any worksheet for quick insights and analysis.
Advanced filtering and sorting: Ask your agent to apply filters or custom sorts to tables, making it easy to focus on what matters most in your datasets.
Secure sharing and permission control: Empower your agent to grant access or update permissions on workbooks, ensuring your team can collaborate safely and efficiently.

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 step08 STEPS

Prerequisites

Before starting, make sure you have:

Python 3.9 or higher
A Composio account and API key
A Excel connection authorized in Composio
An OpenAI API key for the CrewAI LLM
Basic familiarity with Python

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.

Install dependencies

bash

pip install composio crewai crewai-tools[mcp] python-dotenv

What's happening:

composio connects your agent to Excel via MCP
crewai provides Agent, Task, Crew, and LLM primitives
crewai-tools[mcp] includes MCP helpers
python-dotenv loads environment variables from .env

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

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 Excel MCP URL

Create a Composio Tool Router session for Excel

python

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

url = session.mcp.url

What's happening:

You create a Excel only session through Composio
Composio returns an MCP HTTP URL that exposes Excel tools

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.

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 Excel 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=["excel"],
)
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 Excel through Composio's Tool Router. The agent can perform Excel 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 Excel action and event your agent gets out of the box.

Add Chart

Add a chart to a worksheet using Microsoft Graph API.

Add SharePoint Worksheet

Add a new worksheet to a SharePoint Excel workbook using Microsoft Graph Sites API.

Add Table

Create a new table in a worksheet using the Microsoft Graph API.

Add Table Column

Add a column to a table using Microsoft Graph API.

Add Table Row

Add a row to a table using Microsoft Graph API.

Add Workbook Permission

Tool to grant access to a workbook via invite.

Add Worksheet

Add a new worksheet to an Excel workbook using Microsoft Graph API.

Apply Table Filter

Apply a filter to a table column using Microsoft Graph API.

Apply Table Sort

Apply a sort to a table using Microsoft Graph API.

Clear Range

Tool to clear values, formats, or contents in a specified worksheet range.

Clear Table Filter

Clear a filter from a table column using Microsoft Graph API.

Close Excel Session

Tool to close an existing Excel workbook session.

Convert Table To Range

Convert a table to a range using Microsoft Graph API.

Create Workbook

Tool to create a new Excel workbook file at a specified drive path.

Delete Table Column

Delete a column from a table using Microsoft Graph API.

Delete Table Row

Delete a row from a table using Microsoft Graph API.

Delete Worksheet

Tool to delete a worksheet from the workbook.

Export Workbook to PDF

Tool to export an Excel workbook to PDF via Microsoft Graph's format conversion.

Get Chart Axis

Tool to retrieve a specific axis from a chart.

Get Chart Data Labels

Tool to retrieve the data labels object of a chart.

Get Chart Legend

Tool to retrieve the legend object of a chart.

Get Range

Get a range from a worksheet using Microsoft Graph API.

Create Excel Session

Create a session for an Excel workbook using Microsoft Graph API.

Get SharePoint Range

Get a range from a worksheet in SharePoint using Microsoft Graph Sites API.

Get SharePoint Worksheet

Get a worksheet by name or ID from a SharePoint Excel workbook using Microsoft Graph Sites API.

Get table column

Tool to retrieve a specific column from a workbook table.

Get workbook

Tool to retrieve the properties and relationships of a workbook.

Get Worksheet

Get a worksheet by name or ID from an Excel workbook using Microsoft Graph API.

Get Worksheet Used Range

Tool to retrieve a worksheet's used range (active data region) without specifying a fixed range address.

Insert Range

Tool to insert a new cell range into a worksheet, shifting existing cells down or right.

List Charts

List charts in a worksheet using Microsoft Graph API.

List Chart Series

Tool to list all data series in a chart.

List Comments

Tool to list comments in an Excel workbook.

List Drive Item Children

Tool to list immediate children (files/folders) of a folder DriveItem using driveId and itemId.

List Drive Files

List files and folders in a drive root or specified path.

List Named Items

List named items in a workbook using Microsoft Graph API.

List SharePoint Tables

List tables in a SharePoint worksheet using Microsoft Graph Sites API.

List SharePoint Worksheets

List worksheets in an Excel workbook stored in SharePoint using Microsoft Graph Sites API.

List Table Columns

List columns in a table using Microsoft Graph API.

List Table Rows

List rows in a table using Microsoft Graph API.

List Tables

List tables in a worksheet using Microsoft Graph API.

List Workbook Permissions

Tool to list permissions set on the workbook file.

List Worksheets

List worksheets in an Excel workbook using Microsoft Graph API.

Merge Cells

Merge cells in a worksheet range using Microsoft Graph API.

Protect Worksheet

Tool to protect a worksheet using optional protection options.

Search Drive Files

Tool to search OneDrive drive items by query to discover Excel workbook IDs.

Sort Range

Sort a range in a worksheet using Microsoft Graph API.

Update Chart

Update a chart in a worksheet using Microsoft Graph API.

Update Chart Legend

Tool to update formatting or position of a chart legend.

Update Range

Update a range in a worksheet using Microsoft Graph API.

Update SharePoint Range

Update a range in a SharePoint worksheet using Microsoft Graph Sites API.

Update Table

Update a table in a workbook using Microsoft Graph API.

Update Worksheet

Update worksheet properties (name, position) in an Excel workbook using Microsoft Graph API.

Upload Workbook from URL

Tool to upload an external Excel file from a URL into OneDrive/SharePoint.

FRAMEWORKS

How to build Excel MCP Agent with another framework

ChatGPT

Use Excel MCP with ChatGPT

OpenAI Agents SDK

Use Excel MCP with OpenAI Agents SDK

Claude Agent SDK

Use Excel MCP with Claude Agent SDK

Claude Code

Use Excel MCP with Claude Code

Claude Cowork

Use Excel MCP with Claude Cowork

Codex

Use Excel MCP with Codex

Cursor

Use Excel MCP with Cursor

OpenClaw

Use Excel MCP with OpenClaw

Hermes

Use Excel MCP with Hermes

CLI

Use Excel MCP with CLI

Google ADK

Use Excel MCP with Google ADK

LangChain

Use Excel MCP with LangChain

Vercel AI SDK

Use Excel MCP with Vercel AI SDK

Mastra AI

Use Excel MCP with Mastra AI

LlamaIndex

Use Excel MCP with LlamaIndex

OpenCode

Use Excel MCP with OpenCode

VS Code

Use Excel MCP with VS Code

MORE TOOLKITS

Explore Other Toolkits

Toolkit marketplace

21risk

Api Key

21RISK is a web app built for easy checklist, audit, and compliance management. It streamlines risk processes so teams can focus on what matters.

Abstract

Api Key

Abstract provides a suite of APIs for automating data validation and enrichment tasks. It helps developers streamline workflows and ensure data quality with minimal effort.

Addressfinder

Api Key

Addressfinder is a data quality platform for verifying addresses, emails, and phone numbers. It helps you ensure accurate customer and contact data every time.

Agentql

Api Key

Agentql is a toolkit that connects AI agents to the web using a specialized query language. It enables structured web interaction and data extraction for smarter automations.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

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

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

Start with Excel.It takes 30 seconds.

Managed auth, hosted MCP servers, and every Excel 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 Excel MCP with CrewAI

Connect Excel without auth hassles

Introduction

Also integrate Excel with

TL;DR

What is CrewAI?

What is the Excel 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 OpenAI and Composio

Install dependencies

Set up environment variables

Import dependencies

Create a Composio Tool Router session for Excel

Initialize the MCP Server

Create a CLI Chatloop and define the Crew

Complete Code

Conclusion

Supported Tools

How to build Excel MCP Agent with another framework

ChatGPT

OpenAI Agents SDK

Claude Agent SDK

Claude Code

Claude Cowork

Codex

Cursor

OpenClaw

Hermes

CLI

Google ADK

LangChain

Vercel AI SDK

Mastra AI

LlamaIndex

OpenCode

VS Code

Explore Other Toolkits

21risk

Abstract

Addressfinder

Agentql

Frequently asked questions

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

Can I use Tool Router MCP with CrewAI?+

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

How safe is my data with Composio Tool Router?+

Start with Excel.It takes 30 seconds.

Teams ship real agents on Composio