Native Tools vs MCP

Native tools give your LLM tool schemas as function definitions. Composio formats them for your specific framework (OpenAI, Anthropic, Vercel AI, etc.) through provider packages.

MCP exposes tools through the Model Context Protocol. Any MCP-compatible client can connect to a Composio MCP server URL. No provider packages needed.

	Native tools	MCP
Setup	Provider package for your framework	SDK or just a URL
Intercepting tool calls	Yes, you can log, retry, or require approval before each call	Limited, depends on what the MCP client supports
Context window	You control what's loaded	Client loads all tools the server exposes
Latency	SDK calls Composio API directly	MCP protocol adds overhead for tool list discovery and each execution

With native tools, you choose exactly which schemas enter your LLM's context. With MCP, the client pulls the full tool list from the server. A 5-server setup can consume ~55K tokens before the conversation starts. If you're working with many tools, native tools give you more control over that cost.

Native tools

from composio import Composio
from composio_openai import OpenAIProvider

composio = Composio(provider=OpenAIProvider())
session = composio.create(user_id="user_123")
tools = session.tools()
# Returns meta tools (COMPOSIO_SEARCH_TOOLS, COMPOSIO_MANAGE_CONNECTIONS, etc.)
# Agent discovers and executes tools at runtime

import { Composio } from '@composio/core';
import { OpenAIProvider } from '@composio/openai';

const composio = new Composio({
  apiKey: process.env.COMPOSIO_API_KEY,
  provider: new OpenAIProvider(),
});
const session = await composio.create("user_123");
const tools = await session.tools();
// Returns meta tools (COMPOSIO_SEARCH_TOOLS, COMPOSIO_MANAGE_CONNECTIONS, etc.)

MCP

from composio import Composio

composio = Composio()
session = composio.create(user_id="user_123")

mcp_url = session.mcp.url
mcp_headers = session.mcp.headers

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

const composio = new Composio();
const session = await composio.create("user_123");

const mcpUrl = session.mcp.url;
const mcpHeaders = session.mcp.headers;

Then pass session.mcp.url and session.mcp.headers to your framework:

from agents import Agent, HostedMCPTool

agent = Agent(
    name="Assistant",
    tools=[
        HostedMCPTool(
            tool_config={
                "type": "mcp",
                "server_label": "composio",
                "server_url": session.mcp.url,
                "headers": session.mcp.headers,
                "require_approval": "never",
            }
        )
    ],
)

from claude_agent_sdk import ClaudeAgentOptions

options = ClaudeAgentOptions(
    mcp_servers={
        "composio": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": session.mcp.url,
            "headers": session.mcp.headers,
        }
    },
)

import { Composio } from "@composio/core";
import { createMCPClient } from "@ai-sdk/mcp";

const composio = new Composio();
const { mcp } = await composio.create("user_123");

const client = await createMCPClient({
  transport: {
    type: "http",
    url: mcp.url,
    headers: mcp.headers,
  },
});
const tools = await client.tools();

See the quickstart for full working examples.

Native Tools vs MCP

Native tools

MCP

Next steps

Quickstart

Providers

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