How to integrate Quaderno MCP with LlamaIndex

This guide walks you through connecting Quaderno to LlamaIndex using the Composio tool router. By the end, you'll have a working Quaderno agent that can calculate tax rate for a u.s. sale, create an invoice for a new customer, email finalized invoice to a client through natural language commands. This guide will help you understand how to give your LlamaIndex agent real control over a Quaderno account through Composio's Quaderno MCP server. Before we dive in, let's take a quick look at the key ideas and tools involved.

Quaderno logoQuaderno
Api Key

Quaderno is a tax compliance platform that automates tax calculations, invoicing, and reporting for businesses globally. It helps you streamline tax processes and stay compliant without manual effort.

76 Tools

Introduction

This guide walks you through connecting Quaderno to LlamaIndex using the Composio tool router. By the end, you'll have a working Quaderno agent that can calculate tax rate for a u.s. sale, create an invoice for a new customer, email finalized invoice to a client through natural language commands.

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

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

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TL;DR

Here's what you'll learn:
  • Set your OpenAI and Composio API keys
  • Install LlamaIndex and Composio packages
  • Create a Composio Tool Router session for Quaderno
  • Connect LlamaIndex to the Quaderno MCP server
  • Build a Quaderno-powered agent using LlamaIndex
  • Interact with Quaderno through natural language

What is LlamaIndex?

LlamaIndex is a data framework for building LLM applications. It provides tools for connecting LLMs to external data sources and services through agents and tools.

Key features include:

  • ReAct Agent: Reasoning and acting pattern for tool-using agents
  • MCP Tools: Native support for Model Context Protocol
  • Context Management: Maintain conversation context across interactions
  • Async Support: Built for async/await patterns

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

The Quaderno MCP server is an implementation of the Model Context Protocol that connects your AI agent and assistants like Claude, Cursor, etc directly to your Quaderno account. It provides structured and secure access to your tax automation, invoicing, and compliance workflows, so your agent can calculate taxes, generate invoices, manage contacts and products, and handle essential document delivery on your behalf.

  • Automated tax rate calculation: Ask your agent to instantly determine the correct tax rate for any address or transaction type before creating invoices or processing sales.
  • Invoice creation and delivery: Let your agent generate detailed invoices for customers and deliver them directly via email, ensuring seamless billing operations.
  • Contact and product management: Easily create new customer or vendor contacts, add new products, or permanently delete outdated items from your Quaderno account—all through your agent.
  • Expense and tax ID cleanup: Direct your agent to remove specific expenses or registered tax IDs when they're no longer needed, keeping your records tidy and up to date.
  • Credit note and coupon handling: Your agent can deliver finalized credit notes to customers and permanently delete coupons as part of your accounting and revenue operations.

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 step10 STEPS
1

Prerequisites

Before you begin, make sure you have:
  • Python 3.8/Node 16 or higher installed
  • A Composio account with the API key
  • An OpenAI API key
  • A Quaderno account and project
  • Basic familiarity with async Python/Typescript
2

Getting API Keys for OpenAI, Composio, and Quaderno

OpenAI API key (OPENAI_API_KEY)
  • Go to the OpenAI dashboard
  • Create an API key if you don't have one
  • Assign it to OPENAI_API_KEY in .env
Composio API key and user ID
  • Log into the Composio dashboard
  • Copy your API key from Settings
    • Use this as COMPOSIO_API_KEY
  • Pick a stable user identifier (email or ID)
    • Use this as COMPOSIO_USER_ID
3

Installing dependencies

npm install @composio/llamaindex @llamaindex/openai @llamaindex/tools @llamaindex/workflow dotenv

Create a new Typescript project and install the necessary dependencies:

  • @composio/llamaindex: Composio's LlamaIndex integration
  • @llamaindex/openai: OpenAI LLM integration
  • @llamaindex/tools: MCP client for LlamaIndex
  • @llamaindex/workflow: Workflow framework for LlamaIndex
  • dotenv: Environment variable management
4

Set environment variables

bash
OPENAI_API_KEY=your-openai-api-key
COMPOSIO_API_KEY=your-composio-api-key
COMPOSIO_USER_ID=your-user-id

Create a .env file in your project root:

These credentials will be used to:

  • Authenticate with OpenAI's GPT-5 model
  • Connect to Composio's Tool Router
  • Identify your Composio user session for Quaderno access
5

Import modules

import "dotenv/config";
import readline from "node:readline/promises";
import { stdin as input, stdout as output } from "node:process";

import { Composio } from "@composio/core";

import { mcp } from "@llamaindex/tools";
import { agent as createAgent } from "@llamaindex/workflow";
import { openai } from "@llamaindex/openai";

dotenv.config();

Create a new file called quaderno_llamaindex_agent.ts and import the required modules:

Key imports:

  • dotenv.config loads .env at runtime
  • readline gives us a simple CLI chat loop
  • Composio is the main Composio SDK client
  • mcp connects to an MCP endpoint
  • createAgent builds a LlamaIndex agent
  • openai configures the LLM backend
6

Load environment variables and initialize Composio

const OPENAI_API_KEY = process.env.OPENAI_API_KEY;
const COMPOSIO_API_KEY = process.env.COMPOSIO_API_KEY;
const COMPOSIO_USER_ID = process.env.COMPOSIO_USER_ID;

if (!OPENAI_API_KEY) throw new Error("OPENAI_API_KEY is not set");
if (!COMPOSIO_API_KEY) throw new Error("COMPOSIO_API_KEY is not set");
if (!COMPOSIO_USER_ID) throw new Error("COMPOSIO_USER_ID is not set");

What's happening:

This ensures missing credentials cause early, clear errors before the agent attempts to initialise.

7

Create a Tool Router session and build the agent function

async function buildAgent() {

  console.log(`Initializing Composio client...${COMPOSIO_USER_ID!}...`);
  console.log(`COMPOSIO_USER_ID: ${COMPOSIO_USER_ID!}...`);

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

  const session = await composio.create(
    COMPOSIO_USER_ID!,
    {
      toolkits: ["quaderno"],
    },
  );

  const mcpUrl = session.mcp.url;
  console.log(`Composio Tool Router MCP URL: ${mcpUrl}`);

  const server = mcp({
    url: mcpUrl,
    clientName: "composio_tool_router_with_llamaindex",
    requestInit: {
      headers: {
        "x-api-key": COMPOSIO_API_KEY!,
      },
    },
    // verbose: true,
  });

  const tools = await server.tools();

  const llm = openai({ apiKey: OPENAI_API_KEY, model: "gpt-5" });

  const agent = createAgent({
    name: "composio_tool_router_with_llamaindex",
        description : "An agent that uses Composio Tool Router MCP tools to perform actions.",
    systemPrompt:
      "You are a helpful assistant connected to Composio Tool Router."+
"Use the available tools to answer user queries and perform Quaderno actions." ,
    llm,
    tools,
  });

  return agent;
}

What's happening here:

  • We create a Composio client using your API key and configure it with the LlamaIndex provider
  • We then create a tool router MCP session for your user, specifying the toolkits we want to use (in this case, quaderno)
  • The session returns an MCP HTTP endpoint URL that acts as a gateway to all your configured tools
  • LlamaIndex will connect to this endpoint to dynamically discover and use the available Quaderno tools.
  • The MCP tools are mapped to LlamaIndex-compatible tools and plug them into the Agent.
8

Create an interactive chat loop

async function chatLoop(agent: ReturnType<typeof createAgent>) {
  const rl = readline.createInterface({ input, output });

  console.log("Type 'quit' or 'exit' to stop.");

  while (true) {
    let userInput: string;

    try {
      userInput = (await rl.question("\nYou: ")).trim();
    } catch {
      console.log("\nAgent: Bye!");
      break;
    }

    if (!userInput) {
      continue;
    }

    const lower = userInput.toLowerCase();
    if (lower === "quit" || lower === "exit") {
      console.log("Agent: Bye!");
      break;
    }

    try {
      process.stdout.write("Agent: ");

      const stream = agent.runStream(userInput);
      let finalResult: any = null;

      for await (const event of stream) {
        // The event.data contains the streamed content
        const data: any = event.data;

        // Check for streaming delta content
        if (data?.delta) {
          process.stdout.write(data.delta);
        }

        // Store final result for fallback
        if (data?.result || data?.message) {
          finalResult = data;
        }
      }

      // If no streaming happened, show the final result
      if (finalResult) {
        const answer =
          finalResult.result ??
          finalResult.message?.content ??
          finalResult.message ??
          "";
        if (answer && typeof answer === "string" && !answer.includes("[object")) {
          process.stdout.write(answer);
        }
      }

      console.log(); // New line after streaming completes
    } catch (err: any) {
      console.error("\nAgent error:", err?.message ?? err);
    }
  }

  rl.close();
}

What's happening:

  • We're creating a direct terminal interface to chat with Quaderno
  • The LLM's responses are streamed to the CLI for faster interaction.
  • The agent uses context to maintain conversation history
  • The agent processes the request, selects appropriate Quaderno tools, and returns a result
  • We extract the answer from the result data structure and display it to the user
  • You can type 'quit' or 'exit' to stop the chat loop gracefully
  • Agent responses and any errors are streamed in a clear, readable format
9

Define the main entry point

async function main() {
  try {
    const agent = await buildAgent();
    await chatLoop(agent);
  } catch (err) {
    console.error("Failed to start agent:", err);
    process.exit(1);
  }
}

main();

What's happening here:

  • We're orchestrating the entire application flow
  • The agent gets built with proper error handling
  • Then we kick off the interactive chat loop so you can start talking to Quaderno
10

Run the agent

npx ts-node llamaindex-agent.ts

When prompted, authenticate and authorise your agent with Quaderno, then start asking questions.

Complete Code

Here's the complete code to get you started with Quaderno and LlamaIndex:

import "dotenv/config";
import readline from "node:readline/promises";
import { stdin as input, stdout as output } from "node:process";

import { Composio } from "@composio/core";
import { LlamaindexProvider } from "@composio/llamaindex";

import { mcp } from "@llamaindex/tools";
import { agent as createAgent } from "@llamaindex/workflow";
import { openai } from "@llamaindex/openai";

dotenv.config();

const OPENAI_API_KEY = process.env.OPENAI_API_KEY;
const COMPOSIO_API_KEY = process.env.COMPOSIO_API_KEY;
const COMPOSIO_USER_ID = process.env.COMPOSIO_USER_ID;

if (!OPENAI_API_KEY) {
    throw new Error("OPENAI_API_KEY is not set in the environment");
  }
if (!COMPOSIO_API_KEY) {
    throw new Error("COMPOSIO_API_KEY is not set in the environment");
  }
if (!COMPOSIO_USER_ID) {
    throw new Error("COMPOSIO_USER_ID is not set in the environment");
  }

async function buildAgent() {

  console.log(`Initializing Composio client...${COMPOSIO_USER_ID!}...`);
  console.log(`COMPOSIO_USER_ID: ${COMPOSIO_USER_ID!}...`);

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

  const session = await composio.create(
    COMPOSIO_USER_ID!,
    {
      toolkits: ["quaderno"],
    },
  );

  const mcpUrl = session.mcp.url;
  console.log(`Composio Tool Router MCP URL: ${mcpUrl}`);

  const server = mcp({
    url: mcpUrl,
    clientName: "composio_tool_router_with_llamaindex",
    requestInit: {
      headers: {
        "x-api-key": COMPOSIO_API_KEY!,
      },
    },
    // verbose: true,
  });

  const tools = await server.tools();

  const llm = openai({ apiKey: OPENAI_API_KEY, model: "gpt-5" });

  const agent = createAgent({
    name: "composio_tool_router_with_llamaindex",
    description:
      "An agent that uses Composio Tool Router MCP tools to perform actions.",
    systemPrompt:
      "You are a helpful assistant connected to Composio Tool Router."+
"Use the available tools to answer user queries and perform Quaderno actions." ,
    llm,
    tools,
  });

  return agent;
}

async function chatLoop(agent: ReturnType<typeof createAgent>) {
  const rl = readline.createInterface({ input, output });

  console.log("Type 'quit' or 'exit' to stop.");

  while (true) {
    let userInput: string;

    try {
      userInput = (await rl.question("\nYou: ")).trim();
    } catch {
      console.log("\nAgent: Bye!");
      break;
    }

    if (!userInput) {
      continue;
    }

    const lower = userInput.toLowerCase();
    if (lower === "quit" || lower === "exit") {
      console.log("Agent: Bye!");
      break;
    }

    try {
      process.stdout.write("Agent: ");

      const stream = agent.runStream(userInput);
      let finalResult: any = null;

      for await (const event of stream) {
        // The event.data contains the streamed content
        const data: any = event.data;

        // Check for streaming delta content
        if (data?.delta) {
          process.stdout.write(data.delta);
        }

        // Store final result for fallback
        if (data?.result || data?.message) {
          finalResult = data;
        }
      }

      // If no streaming happened, show the final result
      if (finalResult) {
        const answer =
          finalResult.result ??
          finalResult.message?.content ??
          finalResult.message ??
          "";
        if (answer && typeof answer === "string" && !answer.includes("[object")) {
          process.stdout.write(answer);
        }
      }

      console.log(); // New line after streaming completes
    } catch (err: any) {
      console.error("\nAgent error:", err?.message ?? err);
    }
  }

  rl.close();
}

async function main() {
  try {
    const agent = await buildAgent();
    await chatLoop(agent);
  } catch (err: any) {
    console.error("Failed to start agent:", err?.message ?? err);
    process.exit(1);
  }
}

main();

Conclusion

You've successfully connected Quaderno to LlamaIndex through Composio's Tool Router MCP layer. Key takeaways:
  • Tool Router dynamically exposes Quaderno tools through an MCP endpoint
  • LlamaIndex's ReActAgent handles reasoning and orchestration; Composio handles integrations
  • The agent becomes more capable without increasing prompt size
  • Async Python provides clean, efficient execution of agent workflows
You can easily extend this to other toolkits like Gmail, Notion, Stripe, GitHub, and more by adding them to the toolkits parameter.
TOOLS

Supported Tools

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

Add Expense Payment

Adds a payment to an existing expense in Quaderno.

Calculate Tax Rate

Tool to calculate applicable tax rate for given address and transaction type.

Create Contact

Tool to create a new contact (customer or vendor).

Create Coupon

Tool to create a new discount coupon in Quaderno.

Create Estimate

Creates a new estimate/quote in Quaderno for a customer with line items.

Create Evidence

Tool to create a new location evidence for tax compliance.

Create Expense

Tool to create a business expense in Quaderno.

Create Invoice

Creates a new invoice in Quaderno for a customer with line items.

Create Product

Creates a new product that can be used as a line item in invoices, credit notes, and expenses.

Create Receipt

Creates a new receipt in Quaderno documenting payment for goods or services.

Create Recurring

Tool to create a recurring document in Quaderno that automatically generates invoices on a schedule.

Create Report Request

Tool to request a new report generation in Quaderno.

Create Tax ID

Tool to create a tax ID in a specific jurisdiction.

Create Transaction

Tool to create a sale or refund transaction in Quaderno.

Create Webhook

Tool to create a new webhook in Quaderno to receive event notifications.

Delete Contact

Tool to permanently delete a contact by ID.

Delete Coupon

Tool to permanently delete a coupon.

Delete Estimate

Permanently deletes an estimate from Quaderno by its ID.

Delete Expense

Permanently deletes an expense from Quaderno by its ID.

Delete Product

Tool to permanently delete a product by ID.

Delete Recurring

Tool to permanently delete a recurring by ID.

Delete Tax ID

Permanently deletes a registered tax ID from your Quaderno account.

Delete Webhook

Tool to permanently delete a webhook by ID.

Deliver Credit Note

Sends a credit note to the customer via email.

Deliver Estimate

Delivers an estimate to the customer via email.

Deliver Invoice

Delivers an invoice to the customer via email.

Deliver Receipt

Sends a receipt to the customer via email.

Get Authorization

Tool to retrieve account credentials and verify API access.

Get Estimate

Tool to retrieve the details of an existing estimate by ID.

List Contacts

Tool to list contacts, paginated and filterable by name, email, or tax ID.

List Coupons

Tool to list all coupons.

List Credits

Tool to list all credit notes from Quaderno.

List Estimates

Tool to list all estimates in the account, paginated and sorted by creation date (newest first).

List Evidence

Tool to list all evidence objects.

List Expenses

List all expenses from Quaderno with pagination support.

List Invoices

Tool to list all invoices from Quaderno with filtering support.

List Tax Jurisdictions

Tool to list all tax jurisdictions.

List Products

List all products (goods and services) from your Quaderno account.

List Receipts

Tool to list all receipts from Quaderno with optional filtering by search query, date range, payment state, processor ID, or customer ID.

List Recurrings

List all recurring documents (invoices, expenses, or estimates) from your Quaderno account.

List Registered Tax IDs

Tool to list all registered tax IDs.

List Reporting Requests

Retrieves all reporting requests for the account with their current status and download URLs.

List Sessions

List Quaderno Checkout sessions with optional filtering and pagination.

List Tax Codes

Tool to list all supported tax codes.

List Webhooks

Tool to list all webhooks.

Mark Invoice Uncollectible

Tool to mark an invoice as uncollectible (bad debt).

Ping API Service

Tool to check if the Quaderno API service is up and verify credentials.

Record Invoice Payment

Tool to record a payment on an existing invoice.

Remove Invoice Payment

Tool to remove a payment from an invoice.

Retrieve Contact

Tool to retrieve details of an existing contact by ID.

Retrieve Contact by Processor ID

Tool to retrieve a contact by external payment processor customer ID and gateway name.

Retrieve Coupon

Retrieve detailed information about a specific coupon by its ID.

Retrieve Credit Note

Tool to retrieve details of an existing credit note by ID.

Retrieve Evidence

Retrieves a specific evidence object by its ID.

Retrieve Expense

Tool to retrieve details of an existing expense by ID.

Retrieve Invoice

Tool to retrieve details of an existing invoice by ID.

Retrieve Tax Jurisdiction

Tool to retrieve a tax jurisdiction by ID.

Retrieve Product

Tool to retrieve details of an existing product by ID.

Retrieve Receipt

Tool to retrieve details of an existing receipt by ID.

Retrieve Recurring

Tool to retrieve details of an existing recurring document by ID.

Retrieve Reporting Request

Tool to retrieve the status and download URL of a specific report request by ID.

Retrieve Tax Code

Tool to retrieve a specific tax code by ID.

Retrieve Tax ID

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

Update Contact

Tool to update an existing contact in Quaderno.

Update Coupon

Tool to update an existing coupon.

Update Credit Note

Tool to update a credit note.

Update Estimate

Updates an existing estimate in Quaderno by modifying allowed fields.

Update Evidence

Tool to update an evidence object.

Update Expense

Updates an existing expense in Quaderno by modifying allowed fields.

Update Invoice

Updates an existing invoice in Quaderno by modifying allowed fields.

Update product

Tool to update a product; unspecified fields remain unchanged.

Update Recurring

Tool to update a recurring document in Quaderno.

Update Tax ID

Tool to update an existing tax ID in Quaderno.

Update Webhook

Tool to update an existing webhook configuration.

Validate Tax ID

Tool to validate a tax ID.

Void Credit Note

Tool to void a credit note.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

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

Yes, you can. LlamaIndex 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 Quaderno tools.

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

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