How to integrate Shipengine MCP with LlamaIndex

This guide walks you through connecting Shipengine to LlamaIndex using the Composio tool router. By the end, you'll have a working Shipengine agent that can generate shipping label for new order, track status of outgoing packages, validate customer address before shipping through natural language commands. This guide will help you understand how to give your LlamaIndex agent real control over a Shipengine account through Composio's Shipengine MCP server. Before we dive in, let's take a quick look at the key ideas and tools involved.

Shipengine logoShipengine
Api Key

ShipEngine is a shipping API that connects with multiple carriers to manage shipments, labels, and tracking. Streamline your shipping process and reduce manual effort with one unified tool.

66 Tools

Introduction

This guide walks you through connecting Shipengine to LlamaIndex using the Composio tool router. By the end, you'll have a working Shipengine agent that can generate shipping label for new order, track status of outgoing packages, validate customer address before shipping through natural language commands.

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

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

Also integrate Shipengine with

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 Shipengine
  • Connect LlamaIndex to the Shipengine MCP server
  • Build a Shipengine-powered agent using LlamaIndex
  • Interact with Shipengine 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 Shipengine MCP server, and what's possible with it?

The Shipengine MCP server is an implementation of the Model Context Protocol that connects your AI agent and assistants like Claude, Cursor, etc directly to your Shipengine account. It provides structured and secure access to your shipping operations, so your agent can perform actions like generating shipping labels, tracking packages, validating addresses, and managing carrier integrations on your behalf.

  • Automated label creation and management: Instantly generate, purchase, and void shipping labels across multiple carriers, letting your agent streamline fulfillment without manual entry.
  • Real-time package tracking: Ask your agent to track shipments by carrier or tracking number to get up-to-date delivery statuses and shipment histories.
  • Address validation and correction: Have your agent validate and standardize shipment addresses to prevent delivery errors and reduce returns.
  • Carrier rate comparison: Enable your agent to fetch and compare real-time shipping rates from all connected carriers, helping you save on delivery costs.
  • Shipping manifest and batch processing: Let your agent generate manifests or process batches of shipments in a single command, making high-volume shipping fast and efficient.

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 Shipengine account and project
  • Basic familiarity with async Python/Typescript
2

Getting API Keys for OpenAI, Composio, and Shipengine

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 Shipengine 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 shipengine_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: ["shipengine"],
    },
  );

  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 Shipengine 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, shipengine)
  • 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 Shipengine 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 Shipengine
  • 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 Shipengine 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 Shipengine
10

Run the agent

npx ts-node llamaindex-agent.ts

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

Complete Code

Here's the complete code to get you started with Shipengine 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: ["shipengine"],
    },
  );

  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 Shipengine 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 Shipengine to LlamaIndex through Composio's Tool Router MCP layer. Key takeaways:
  • Tool Router dynamically exposes Shipengine 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 Shipengine action and event your agent gets out of the box.

Add Tag to Shipment

Tool to add a tag to a shipment for organization and filtering.

Add to Batch

Tool to add shipments or rate IDs to an existing batch.

Cancel Shipment

Tool to cancel a shipment by ID.

Connect LTL Carrier

Tool to connect an LTL carrier account to ShipEngine.

Connect Shipsurance Account

Tool to connect a Shipsurance insurance account to ShipEngine.

Create Account Image

Tool to create a new account image in ShipEngine.

Create Package Type

Tool to create a custom package type definition in ShipEngine.

Create Tag

Tool to create a new tag in ShipEngine.

Create Tag 2

Tool to create a new tag for organizing shipments.

Create Warehouse

Tool to create a new warehouse.

Create Webhook

Tool to create a ShipEngine webhook.

Delete Account Image by ID

Tool to delete a ShipEngine account image by its ID.

Delete Batch

Tool to delete a batch by ID.

Delete Package

Tool to delete a custom package type by ID.

Delete Warehouse

Tool to delete a warehouse from your ShipEngine account.

Delete Webhook

Tool to delete a ShipEngine webhook subscription.

Disconnect Carrier

Tool to disconnect a carrier account from ShipEngine.

Disconnect Shipsurance

Tool to disconnect a Shipsurance insurance account from ShipEngine.

Download File

Tool to download a file from ShipEngine.

Get Account Image by ID

Tool to retrieve account image settings by label image ID.

Get Batch by External ID

Tool to retrieve batch details using an external batch ID.

Get Batch by ID

Tool to retrieve detailed information about a specific batch by its ID.

Get Batch Errors

Tool to retrieve errors that occurred during batch processing.

Get Bulk Rates

Tool to get shipping rates for multiple shipments in a single request.

Get Insurance Balance

Tool to retrieve the current Shipsurance insurance funds balance.

Get LTL Carrier Credential Requirements

Tool to retrieve credential requirements for connecting an LTL carrier.

Get LTL Carrier Features

Tool to retrieve features supported by an LTL carrier.

Get LTL Carrier Options

Tool to list available options/accessorials for an LTL carrier.

Get LTL Carrier Packages

Tool to list available package/handling unit types for an LTL (Less Than Truckload) carrier.

Get LTL Carrier Services

Tool to list available services for an LTL carrier.

Get Package by ID

Tool to get details of a specific custom package type by ID.

Get Shipment by External ID

Tool to retrieve shipment details using an external shipment ID.

Get Shipment by ID

Tool to retrieve a shipment by ID.

Get Shipment Rates

Tool to retrieve shipping rates for an existing shipment.

Get Tracking Information

Tool to retrieve tracking information for a shipment.

Get Warehouse by ID

Tool to retrieve details of a specific warehouse by ID.

Get Webhook by ID

Tool to retrieve details of a specific webhook by ID.

List Account Images

Tool to list all account images.

List Account Settings

Tool to list all account settings for the ShipEngine account.

List Batches (v2)

Tool to list all batches with comprehensive filtering options.

List Carrier Package Types

Tool to list all available package types for a specific carrier.

List Labels (Extended)

Tool to list all shipping labels with comprehensive filtering options.

List LTL Carriers

Tool to list all LTL (Less-Than-Truckload) carrier accounts connected to your ShipEngine account.

List Manifests (Advanced)

Tool to list all manifests with optional filtering by warehouse and carrier.

List Packages

Tool to list all package types.

List Scheduled Pickups

Tool to list all scheduled pickups with optional filters.

List Shipments (v2)

Tool to list all shipments with optional filtering parameters.

List Tags (v2)

Tool to list all tags in your account.

List Warehouses

Tool to list all warehouses.

List Webhook Events

Retrieve a list of available webhook event types supported by ShipEngine.

List Webhooks

Tool to list all webhooks configured on your account.

Parse Address

Tool to parse unstructured address text and extract structured address components.

Process Batch Labels

Tool to process a batch to create and purchase shipping labels for all shipments in the batch.

Remove From Batch

Tool to remove shipments or rate IDs from a batch.

Remove Tag from Shipment

Tool to remove a tag from a shipment.

Start Tracking Package

Tool to subscribe to tracking updates for a package via webhooks.

Stop Tracking Package

Tool to unsubscribe from tracking updates for a package.

Track LTL Shipment

Tool to track an LTL shipment using carrier code and PRO number.

Update Account Image By ID

Tool to update an account image by ID in ShipEngine.

Update LTL Connection

Tool to update LTL carrier connection credentials in ShipEngine.

Update Package Type

Tool to update an existing custom package type definition.

Update Shipment

Tool to update an existing shipment's details.

Update Shipments Tags

Tool to update tags on one or more shipments in bulk.

Update Warehouse

Tool to update an existing warehouse's details and address.

Update Webhook

Tool to update a ShipEngine webhook.

Validate Address

Tool to validate and normalize shipping addresses.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

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

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

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