How to integrate Scale ai MCP with OpenAI Agents SDK

This guide walks you through connecting Scale ai to the OpenAI Agents SDK using the Composio tool router. By the end, you'll have a working Scale ai agent that can create image labeling task for dataset 'road-signs', list completed annotation tasks for project, fetch results of data labeling job through natural language commands. This guide will help you understand how to give your OpenAI Agents SDK agent real control over a Scale ai account through Composio's Scale ai MCP server. Before we dive in, let's take a quick look at the key ideas and tools involved.

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Api Key

Scale ai provides machine learning data labeling and annotation services. It enables teams to train AI models with high-quality, human-labeled data at scale.

41 Tools

Introduction

This guide walks you through connecting Scale ai to the OpenAI Agents SDK using the Composio tool router. By the end, you'll have a working Scale ai agent that can create image labeling task for dataset 'road-signs', list completed annotation tasks for project, fetch results of data labeling job through natural language commands.

This guide will help you understand how to give your OpenAI Agents SDK agent real control over a Scale ai account through Composio's Scale ai 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:
  • Get and set up your OpenAI and Composio API keys
  • Install the necessary dependencies
  • Initialize Composio and create a Tool Router session for Scale ai
  • Configure an AI agent that can use Scale ai as a tool
  • Run a live chat session where you can ask the agent to perform Scale ai operations

What is OpenAI Agents SDK?

The OpenAI Agents SDK is a lightweight framework for building AI agents that can use tools and maintain conversation state. It provides a simple interface for creating agents with hosted MCP tool support.

Key features include:

  • Hosted MCP Tools: Connect to external services through hosted MCP endpoints
  • SQLite Sessions: Persist conversation history across interactions
  • Simple API: Clean interface with Agent, Runner, and tool configuration
  • Streaming Support: Real-time response streaming for interactive applications

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

The Scale ai MCP server is an implementation of the Model Context Protocol that connects your AI agent and assistants like Claude, Cursor, etc directly to your Scale ai account. It provides structured and secure access so your agent can perform Scale ai operations on your behalf.

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 step09 STEPS
1

Prerequisites

Before starting, make sure you have:
  • Composio API Key and OpenAI API Key
  • Primary know-how of OpenAI Agents SDK
  • A live Scale ai project
  • Some knowledge of Python or Typescript
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
3

Install dependencies

npm install @composio/openai-agents @openai/agents dotenv

Install the Composio SDK and the OpenAI Agents SDK.

4

Set up environment variables

bash
OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-...your-api-key
COMPOSIO_API_KEY=your-api-key
USER_ID=composio_user@gmail.com

Create a .env file and add your OpenAI and Composio API keys.

5

Import dependencies

import 'dotenv/config';
import { Composio } from '@composio/core';
import { OpenAIAgentsProvider } from '@composio/openai-agents';
import { Agent, hostedMcpTool, run, OpenAIConversationsSession } from '@openai/agents';
import * as readline from 'readline';
What's happening:
  • You're importing all necessary libraries.
  • The Composio and OpenAIAgentsProvider classes are imported to connect your OpenAI agent to Composio tools like Scale ai.
6

Set up the Composio instance

dotenv.config();

const composioApiKey = process.env.COMPOSIO_API_KEY;
const userId = process.env.USER_ID;

if (!composioApiKey) {
  throw new Error('COMPOSIO_API_KEY is not set. Create a .env file with COMPOSIO_API_KEY=your_key');
}
if (!userId) {
  throw new Error('USER_ID is not set');
}

// Initialize Composio
const composio = new Composio({
  apiKey: composioApiKey,
  provider: new OpenAIAgentsProvider(),
});
What's happening:
  • dotenv.config() loads your .env file so COMPOSIO_API_KEY and USER_ID are available as environment variables.
  • Creating a Composio instance using the API Key and OpenAIAgentsProvider class.
7

Create a Tool Router session

// Create Tool Router session for Scale ai
const session = await composio.create(userId as string, {
  toolkits: ['scale_ai'],
});
const mcpUrl = session.mcp.url;

What is happening:

  • You give the Tool Router the user id and the toolkits you want available. Here, it is only scale_ai.
  • The router checks the user's Scale ai connection and prepares the MCP endpoint.
  • The returned session.mcp.url is the MCP URL that your agent will use to access Scale ai.
  • This approach keeps things lightweight and lets the agent request Scale ai tools only when needed during the conversation.
8

Configure the agent

// Configure agent with MCP tool
const agent = new Agent({
  name: 'Assistant',
  model: 'gpt-5',
  instructions:
    'You are a helpful assistant that can access Scale ai. Help users perform Scale ai operations through natural language.',
  tools: [
    hostedMcpTool({
      serverLabel: 'tool_router',
      serverUrl: mcpUrl,
      headers: { 'x-api-key': composioApiKey },
      requireApproval: 'never',
    }),
  ],
});
What's happening:
  • We're creating an Agent instance with a name, model (gpt-5), and clear instructions about its purpose.
  • The agent's instructions tell it that it can access Scale ai and help with queries, inserts, updates, authentication, and fetching database information.
  • The tools array includes a hostedMcpTool that connects to the MCP server URL we created earlier.
  • The headers object includes the Composio API key for secure authentication with the MCP server.
  • requireApproval: 'never' means the agent can execute Scale ai operations without asking for permission each time, making interactions smoother.
9

Start chat loop and handle conversation

// Keep conversation state across turns
const conversationSession = new OpenAIConversationsSession();

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

console.log('\nComposio Tool Router session created.');
console.log('\nChat started. Type your requests below.');
console.log("Commands: 'exit', 'quit', or 'q' to end\n");

try {
  const first = await run(agent, 'What can you help me with?', { session: conversationSession });
  console.log(`Assistant: ${first.finalOutput}\n`);
} catch (e) {
  console.error('Error:', e instanceof Error ? e.message : e, '\n');
}

rl.prompt();

rl.on('line', async (userInput) => {
  const text = userInput.trim();

  if (['exit', 'quit', 'q'].includes(text.toLowerCase())) {
    console.log('Goodbye!');
    rl.close();
    process.exit(0);
  }

  if (!text) {
    rl.prompt();
    return;
  }

  try {
    const result = await run(agent, text, { session: conversationSession });
    console.log(`\nAssistant: ${result.finalOutput}\n`);
  } catch (e) {
    console.error('Error:', e instanceof Error ? e.message : e, '\n');
  }

  rl.prompt();
});

rl.on('close', () => {
  console.log('\n👋 Session ended.');
  process.exit(0);
});
What's happening:
  • The program prints a session URL that you visit to authorize Scale ai.
  • After authorization, the chat begins.
  • Each message you type is processed by the agent using run().
  • The responses are printed to the console.
  • Typing exit, quit, or q cleanly ends the chat.

Complete Code

Here's the complete code to get you started with Scale ai and OpenAI Agents SDK:

import 'dotenv/config';
import { Composio } from '@composio/core';
import { OpenAIAgentsProvider } from '@composio/openai-agents';
import { Agent, hostedMcpTool, run, OpenAIConversationsSession } from '@openai/agents';
import * as readline from 'readline';

const composioApiKey = process.env.COMPOSIO_API_KEY;
const userId = process.env.USER_ID;

if (!composioApiKey) {
  throw new Error('COMPOSIO_API_KEY is not set. Create a .env file with COMPOSIO_API_KEY=your_key');
}
if (!userId) {
  throw new Error('USER_ID is not set');
}

// Initialize Composio
const composio = new Composio({
  apiKey: composioApiKey,
  provider: new OpenAIAgentsProvider(),
});

async function main() {
  // Create Tool Router session
  const session = await composio.create(userId as string, {
    toolkits: ['scale_ai'],
  });
  const mcpUrl = session.mcp.url;

  // Configure agent with MCP tool
  const agent = new Agent({
    name: 'Assistant',
    model: 'gpt-5',
    instructions:
      'You are a helpful assistant that can access Scale ai. Help users perform Scale ai operations through natural language.',
    tools: [
      hostedMcpTool({
        serverLabel: 'tool_router',
        serverUrl: mcpUrl,
        headers: { 'x-api-key': composioApiKey },
        requireApproval: 'never',
      }),
    ],
  });

  // Keep conversation state across turns
  const conversationSession = new OpenAIConversationsSession();

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

  console.log('\nComposio Tool Router session created.');
  console.log('\nChat started. Type your requests below.');
  console.log("Commands: 'exit', 'quit', or 'q' to end\n");

  try {
    const first = await run(agent, 'What can you help me with?', { session: conversationSession });
    console.log(`Assistant: ${first.finalOutput}\n`);
  } catch (e) {
    console.error('Error:', e instanceof Error ? e.message : e, '\n');
  }

  rl.prompt();

  rl.on('line', async (userInput) => {
    const text = userInput.trim();

    if (['exit', 'quit', 'q'].includes(text.toLowerCase())) {
      console.log('Goodbye!');
      rl.close();
      process.exit(0);
    }

    if (!text) {
      rl.prompt();
      return;
    }

    try {
      const result = await run(agent, text, { session: conversationSession });
      console.log(`\nAssistant: ${result.finalOutput}\n`);
    } catch (e) {
      console.error('Error:', e instanceof Error ? e.message : e, '\n');
    }

    rl.prompt();
  });

  rl.on('close', () => {
    console.log('\nSession ended.');
    process.exit(0);
  });
}

main().catch((err) => {
  console.error('Fatal error:', err);
  process.exit(1);
});

Conclusion

This was a starter code for integrating Scale ai MCP with OpenAI Agents SDK to build a functional AI agent that can interact with Scale ai.

Key features:

  • Hosted MCP tool integration through Composio's Tool Router
  • SQLite session persistence for conversation history
  • Simple async chat loop for interactive testing
You can extend this by adding more toolkits, implementing custom business logic, or building a web interface around the agent.
TOOLS

Supported Tools

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

Add Studio Assignments

Tool to add project assignments to team members in Scale AI Studio.

Add Task Tags

Tool to add tags to an existing task.

Create Batch

Tool to create a new batch within a project.

Create Document Transcription Task

Tool to create a document transcription task where workers transcribe and annotate information from single or multi-page documents.

Create Image Annotation Task

Tool to create an image annotation task where annotators label images with vector geometric shapes (box, polygon, line, point, cuboid, ellipse).

Create Lidar Annotation Task

Tool to create a lidar annotation task where annotators mark objects with 3D cuboids in 3D space.

Create LiDAR Segmentation Task

Tool to create a LiDAR segmentation task where annotators assign semantic class labels to individual LiDAR points.

Create Named Entity Recognition Task

Tool to create a named entity recognition task for labelers to highlight text entity mentions.

Create Segmentation Annotation Task

Tool to create a segmentation task where annotators classify pixels in an image according to provided labels.

Create Text Collection Task

Tool to create a textcollection task for collecting information from attachments and/or web sources.

Create Video Annotation Task

Tool to create a video annotation task where annotators draw geometric shapes around specified objects across video frames.

Create Video Playback Annotation Task

Tool to create a video playback annotation task where annotators draw shapes around specified objects in video files.

Delete Task Tags

Tool to remove specified tags from a Scale AI task.

Delete Task Unique ID

Tool to remove the unique identifier from a task.

Finalize Batch

Tool to finalize a batch so its tasks can be worked on.

Get Assets

Tool to retrieve file assets with filtering capabilities by project and metadata.

Get Batch

Tool to retrieve the details of a batch with the specified name.

Get Batch Status

Tool to retrieve the current status of a batch and task completion counts.

Get Fixless Audits

Tool to retrieve fixless audits by task ID or audit ID.

Get Project

Tool to retrieve details about a specific Scale AI project using its unique identifier.

Get Quality Labelers

Tool to retrieve training attempts matching provided filter parameters.

Get Studio Assignments

Tool to retrieve current project assignments of all active team users in Scale AI Studio.

Get Studio Batches

Tool to retrieve basic information about all pending batches in Studio.

Get Task

Tool to retrieve detailed information about a specific task in Scale AI.

Get Teams

Tool to retrieve basic information about all team members associated with the account.

Get Task by ID

Tool to retrieve detailed information about a specific task using its task ID.

Get Secure Task Response URL

Tool to retrieve secure authenticated task response data.

Import File

Tool to import files from an external URL endpoint into Scale's system rather than uploading directly from local storage.

Invite Team Member

Tool to invite users by email to team with specified role.

List Batches

Tool to retrieve all batches in descending order by creation date.

List Projects

Tool to retrieve information for all projects in the Scale AI account with optional archived filtering.

List Tasks

Tool to retrieve a paginated list of tasks in descending order by creation time.

Re-send Task Callback

Tool to re-send a callback for a completed or errored task to the callback_url.

Remove Studio Assignments

Tool to unassign projects from specified team members in Scale AI Studio.

Reset Batch Priorities

Tool to restore batch priority order to default order (calibration batches first, then sorted by creation date).

Set Batch Priorities

Tool to modify batch priority order in Scale AI Studio.

Set Project Ontology

Tool to set ontologies on a Scale AI project.

Set Project Parameters

Tool to set default parameters for tasks created under a project.

Set Task Metadata

Tool to set key-value metadata on an existing Scale AI task.

Update Task Unique ID

Tool to update or assign a unique identifier to a task.

Upload File

Tool to upload a local file to Scale's servers with a maximum size limit of 80 MB per file.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

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

Yes, you can. OpenAI Agents 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 Scale ai tools.

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

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