How to integrate Timely MCP with Mastra AI

This guide walks you through connecting Timely to Mastra AI using the Composio tool router. By the end, you'll have a working Timely agent that can get your timely account billing details, set up webhook for new time entries, retrieve account info for client project through natural language commands. This guide will help you understand how to give your Mastra AI agent real control over a Timely account through Composio's Timely MCP server. Before we dive in, let's take a quick look at the key ideas and tools involved.

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Timely

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Timely is an automatic time-tracking platform that seamlessly records work across apps, calendars, and devices. It helps you create detailed timesheets and gain productivity insights without manual input.

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Introduction

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

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

Also integrate Timely with

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

TL;DR

Here's what you'll learn:

Set up your environment so Mastra, OpenAI, and Composio work together
Create a Tool Router session in Composio that exposes Timely tools
Connect Mastra's MCP client to the Composio generated MCP URL
Fetch Timely tool definitions and attach them as a toolset
Build a Mastra agent that can reason, call tools, and return structured results
Run an interactive CLI where you can chat with your Timely agent

What is Mastra AI?

Mastra AI is a TypeScript framework for building AI agents with tool support. It provides a clean API for creating agents that can use external services through MCP.

Key features include:

MCP Client: Built-in support for Model Context Protocol servers
Toolsets: Organize tools into logical groups
Step Callbacks: Monitor and debug agent execution
OpenAI Integration: Works with OpenAI models via @ai-sdk/openai

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

The Timely MCP server is an implementation of the Model Context Protocol that connects your AI agent and assistants like Claude, Cursor, etc directly to your Timely account. It provides structured and secure access to your time-tracking data, so your agent can perform actions like retrieving account information, managing webhooks, and integrating time logs with other workflows on your behalf.

Account information retrieval: Instantly fetch up-to-date details about your Timely account, including billing, activity, and user info, for streamlined reporting or troubleshooting.
Automated webhook setup: Direct your agent to create new webhooks for your account, enabling real-time integration with external apps and automated event notifications.
Seamless workflow automation: Connect Timely events to other services or agents by configuring webhooks, so you can automate time-tracking updates or project triggers.
Centralized time management: Allow your agent to coordinate between Timely and your other productivity tools by securely accessing and sharing account data as needed.

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:

Node.js 18 or higher
A Composio account with an active API key
An OpenAI API key
Basic familiarity with TypeScript

Getting API Keys for OpenAI and Composio

OpenAI API Key

Go to the OpenAI dashboard and create an API key.
You need credits or a connected billing setup to use the models.
Store the key somewhere safe.

Composio API Key

Log in to the Composio dashboard.
Go to Settings and copy your API key.
This key lets your Mastra agent talk to Composio and reach Timely through MCP.

Install dependencies

bash

npm install @composio/core @mastra/core @mastra/mcp @ai-sdk/openai dotenv

Install the required packages.

What's happening:

@composio/core is the Composio SDK for creating MCP sessions
@mastra/core provides the Agent class
@mastra/mcp is Mastra's MCP client
@ai-sdk/openai is the model wrapper for OpenAI
dotenv loads environment variables from .env

Set up environment variables

bash

COMPOSIO_API_KEY=your_composio_api_key_here
COMPOSIO_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 your requests to Composio
COMPOSIO_USER_ID tells Composio which user this session belongs to
OPENAI_API_KEY lets the Mastra agent call OpenAI models

Import libraries and validate environment

typescript

import "dotenv/config";
import { openai } from "@ai-sdk/openai";
import { Agent } from "@mastra/core/agent";
import { MCPClient } from "@mastra/mcp";
import { Composio } from "@composio/core";
import * as readline from "readline";

import type { AiMessageType } from "@mastra/core/agent";

const openaiAPIKey = process.env.OPENAI_API_KEY;
const composioAPIKey = process.env.COMPOSIO_API_KEY;
const composioUserID = process.env.COMPOSIO_USER_ID;

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

const composio = new Composio({
  apiKey: composioAPIKey as string,
});

What's happening:

dotenv/config auto loads your .env so process.env.* is available
openai gives you a Mastra compatible model wrapper
Agent is the Mastra agent that will call tools and produce answers
MCPClient connects Mastra to your Composio MCP server
Composio is used to create a Tool Router session

Create a Tool Router session for Timely

typescript

async function main() {
  const session = await composio.create(
    composioUserID as string,
    {
      toolkits: ["timely"],
    },
  );

  const composioMCPUrl = session.mcp.url;
  console.log("Timely MCP URL:", composioMCPUrl);

What's happening:

create spins up a short-lived MCP HTTP endpoint for this user
The toolkits array contains "timely" for Timely access
session.mcp.url is the MCP URL that Mastra's MCPClient will connect to

Configure Mastra MCP client and fetch tools

typescript

const mcpClient = new MCPClient({
    id: composioUserID as string,
    servers: {
      nasdaq: {
        url: new URL(composioMCPUrl),
        requestInit: {
          headers: session.mcp.headers,
        },
      },
    },
    timeout: 30_000,
  });

console.log("Fetching MCP tools from Composio...");
const composioTools = await mcpClient.getTools();
console.log("Number of tools:", Object.keys(composioTools).length);

What's happening:

MCPClient takes an id for this client and a list of MCP servers
The headers property includes the x-api-key for authentication
getTools fetches the tool definitions exposed by the Timely toolkit

Create the Mastra agent

typescript

const agent = new Agent({
    name: "timely-mastra-agent",
    instructions: "You are an AI agent with Timely tools via Composio.",
    model: "openai/gpt-5",
  });

What's happening:

Agent is the core Mastra agent
name is just an identifier for logging and debugging
instructions guide the agent to use tools instead of only answering in natural language
model uses openai("gpt-5") to configure the underlying LLM

Set up interactive chat interface

typescript

let messages: AiMessageType[] = [];

console.log("Chat started! Type 'exit' or 'quit' to end.\n");

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

rl.prompt();

rl.on("line", async (userInput: string) => {
  const trimmedInput = userInput.trim();

  if (["exit", "quit", "bye"].includes(trimmedInput.toLowerCase())) {
    console.log("\nGoodbye!");
    rl.close();
    process.exit(0);
  }

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

  messages.push({
    id: crypto.randomUUID(),
    role: "user",
    content: trimmedInput,
  });

  console.log("\nAgent is thinking...\n");

  try {
    const response = await agent.generate(messages, {
      toolsets: {
        timely: composioTools,
      },
      maxSteps: 8,
    });

    const { text } = response;

    if (text && text.trim().length > 0) {
      console.log(`Agent: ${text}\n`);
        messages.push({
          id: crypto.randomUUID(),
          role: "assistant",
          content: text,
        });
      }
    } catch (error) {
      console.error("\nError:", error);
    }

    rl.prompt();
  });

  rl.on("close", async () => {
    console.log("\nSession ended.");
    await mcpClient.disconnect();
    process.exit(0);
  });
}

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

What's happening:

messages keeps the full conversation history in Mastra's expected format
agent.generate runs the agent with conversation history and Timely toolsets
maxSteps limits how many tool calls the agent can take in a single run
onStepFinish is a hook that prints intermediate steps for debugging

Complete Code

Here's the complete code to get you started with Timely and Mastra AI:

typescript

import "dotenv/config";
import { openai } from "@ai-sdk/openai";
import { Agent } from "@mastra/core/agent";
import { MCPClient } from "@mastra/mcp";
import { Composio } from "@composio/core";
import * as readline from "readline";

import type { AiMessageType } from "@mastra/core/agent";

const openaiAPIKey = process.env.OPENAI_API_KEY;
const composioAPIKey = process.env.COMPOSIO_API_KEY;
const composioUserID = process.env.COMPOSIO_USER_ID;

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

const composio = new Composio({ apiKey: composioAPIKey as string });

async function main() {
  const session = await composio.create(composioUserID as string, {
    toolkits: ["timely"],
  });

  const composioMCPUrl = session.mcp.url;

  const mcpClient = new MCPClient({
    id: composioUserID as string,
    servers: {
      timely: {
        url: new URL(composioMCPUrl),
        requestInit: {
          headers: session.mcp.headers,
        },
      },
    },
    timeout: 30_000,
  });

  const composioTools = await mcpClient.getTools();

  const agent = new Agent({
    name: "timely-mastra-agent",
    instructions: "You are an AI agent with Timely tools via Composio.",
    model: "openai/gpt-5",
  });

  let messages: AiMessageType[] = [];

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

  rl.prompt();

  rl.on("line", async (input: string) => {
    const trimmed = input.trim();
    if (["exit", "quit"].includes(trimmed.toLowerCase())) {
      rl.close();
      return;
    }

    messages.push({ id: crypto.randomUUID(), role: "user", content: trimmed });

    const { text } = await agent.generate(messages, {
      toolsets: { timely: composioTools },
      maxSteps: 8,
    });

    if (text) {
      console.log(`Agent: ${text}\n`);
      messages.push({ id: crypto.randomUUID(), role: "assistant", content: text });
    }

    rl.prompt();
  });

  rl.on("close", async () => {
    await mcpClient.disconnect();
    process.exit(0);
  });
}

main();

Conclusion

You've built a Mastra AI agent that can interact with Timely through Composio's Tool Router. You can extend this further by:

Adding other toolkits like Gmail, Slack, or GitHub
Building a web-based chat interface around this agent
Using multiple MCP endpoints to enable cross-app workflows

TOOLS

Supported Tools

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

Create Client

Tool to create a new client in the specified Timely account.

Create Day Locking

Tool to create a day locking entry that prevents editing of time entries for specific dates and users.

Create Label

Tool to create a new label in the specified Timely account.

Create report

Tool to generate reports for a Timely account with optional filters.

Create Team

Tool to create a new team in the specified Timely account.

Create Webhook

Tool to create a new webhook for the specified account.

Delete a label

Tool to delete a label by ID from a Timely account.

Delete a team

Tool to delete a team by its ID.

Delete Webhook

Tool to delete an existing webhook by its ID.

Filter reports

Tool to filter Timely reports based on date range, users, projects, labels, teams, and billing status.

Get activities

Tool to retrieve all activities (audit trail) for a Timely account.

Get Client

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

Get current user's permissions

Tool to retrieve the current user's permissions for a specified account.

Get current user

Tool to retrieve the currently authenticated user.

Retrieve a label

Tool to retrieve a label by ID from a Timely account.

Get project

Tool to retrieve a single project by its ID.

Retrieve a team

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

Retrieve a user

Tool to retrieve a user by ID from a Timely account.

Get user capacities

Tool to retrieve capacity information for a specific user in a Timely account.

Get user permissions

Tool to retrieve a user's permissions by their ID.

Get Webhook

Tool to retrieve a specific webhook by its ID.

List accounts

Retrieve all accessible Timely accounts for the authenticated user.

List clients

Tool to list all clients in a Timely account with optional filtering and sorting.

List events

Tool to list all events (time entries) in a Timely account with optional filtering by date range, users, and projects.

List forecasts

Tool to list all forecasts (tasks) in a Timely account with optional date filtering.

List labels

Tool to list all labels in a Timely account.

List project events

Tool to list all events (time entries) for a specific project in Timely.

List projects

Tool to list all projects in a Timely account with optional filtering and sorting.

List roles

Tool to list all available roles in a Timely account.

List teams

Tool to list all teams in the specified Timely account.

List user events

Tool to list all events (time entries) for a specific user in Timely.

List users

Tool to list all users in a Timely account with optional filtering and pagination.

List Webhooks

Tool to list all webhooks in the specified account.

Process bulk events

Tool to create, update, or delete multiple events in a single bulk operation.

Retrieve an account

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

Update a client

Tool to update an existing client by ID in Timely.

Update day locking settings

Tool to update day locking settings for specified users and dates.

Update a label

Tool to update a label by ID in a Timely account.

Update a project

Tool to update a project by ID in a Timely account.

Update a user

Tool to update a user by ID in a Timely account.

Update Webhook

Tool to update an existing webhook by ID.

FRAMEWORKS

How to build Timely MCP Agent with another framework

OpenAI Agents SDK

Use Timely MCP with OpenAI Agents SDK

Claude Agent SDK

Use Timely MCP with Claude Agent SDK

Claude Code

Use Timely MCP with Claude Code

Claude Cowork

Use Timely MCP with Claude Cowork

Codex

Use Timely MCP with Codex

OpenClaw

Use Timely MCP with OpenClaw

Hermes

Use Timely MCP with Hermes

CLI

Use Timely MCP with CLI

Google ADK

Use Timely MCP with Google ADK

LangChain

Use Timely MCP with LangChain

Vercel AI SDK

Use Timely MCP with Vercel AI SDK

LlamaIndex

Use Timely MCP with LlamaIndex

CrewAI

Use Timely MCP with CrewAI

MORE TOOLKITS

Explore Other Toolkits

Toolkit marketplace

Google Sheets

Oauth2

Google Sheets is a cloud-based spreadsheet tool for real-time collaboration and data analysis. It lets teams work together from anywhere, updating information instantly.

Notion

Oauth2Api Key

Notion is a collaborative workspace for notes, docs, wikis, and tasks. It streamlines team knowledge, project tracking, and workflow customization in one place.

Airtable

Oauth2Api Key

Airtable combines the flexibility of spreadsheets with the power of a database for easy project and data management. Teams use Airtable to organize, track, and collaborate with custom views and automations.

Asana

Oauth2

Asana is a collaborative work management platform for teams to organize and track projects. It streamlines teamwork, boosts productivity, and keeps everyone aligned on goals.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

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

Yes, you can. Mastra AI 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 Timely tools.

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

Start with Timely.It takes 30 seconds.

Managed auth, hosted MCP servers, and every Timely 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 Timely MCP with Mastra AI

Connect Timely without auth hassles

Introduction

Also integrate Timely with

TL;DR

What is Mastra AI?

What is the Timely 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 libraries and validate environment

Create a Tool Router session for Timely

Configure Mastra MCP client and fetch tools

Create the Mastra agent

Set up interactive chat interface

Complete Code

Conclusion

Supported Tools

How to build Timely MCP Agent with another framework

OpenAI Agents SDK

Claude Agent SDK

Claude Code

Claude Cowork

Codex

OpenClaw

Hermes

CLI

Google ADK

LangChain

Vercel AI SDK

LlamaIndex

CrewAI

Explore Other Toolkits

Google Sheets

Notion

Airtable

Asana

Frequently asked questions

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

Can I use Tool Router MCP with Mastra AI?+

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

How safe is my data with Composio Tool Router?+

Start with Timely.It takes 30 seconds.

Teams ship real agents on Composio