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Tutorial: Publish Agents as MCP Tools

Expose your CrewForm agents as MCP (Model Context Protocol) tools that Claude Desktop, Cursor, and any MCP-compatible AI client can call directly. This turns your agents into universal AI building blocks.

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What You’ll Build

By the end of this tutorial, you’ll have:
  • A CrewForm agent published as an MCP tool
  • Claude Desktop configured to call your agent
  • A working end-to-end demo where Claude uses your agent as a tool

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What is MCP?

The Model Context Protocol is an open standard for connecting AI systems with external tools and data sources. When you publish a CrewForm agent as an MCP server, any MCP-compatible client can discover and invoke it — just like calling a function.
CrewForm is one of the few platforms that supports MCP as both client AND server. Your agents can consume external MCP tools and be consumed by other AI systems.

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Prerequisites

  • A CrewForm account with at least one configured agent
  • Claude Desktop installed (or Cursor)
  • An internet-accessible CrewForm instance (cloud or self-hosted with public URL)

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Step 1: Create an Agent Worth Publishing

Let’s create a useful agent that Claude Desktop will call as a tool. Example: a code review agent.
  1. Go to Agents → New Agent
  2. Configure:
FieldValue
NameCode Reviewer
DescriptionReviews code for bugs, security issues, and best practices. Returns a structured report.
Modelclaude-sonnet-4-20250514
Temperature0.2
  1. System prompt:
You are a senior code reviewer specializing in TypeScript, Python, and React.

When given code to review, analyze it for:
1. **Bugs**: Logic errors, off-by-one errors, null reference issues
2. **Security**: SQL injection, XSS, insecure data handling
3. **Performance**: N+1 queries, unnecessary re-renders, memory leaks
4. **Best Practices**: Naming conventions, code organization, DRY violations

Output format:
## Code Review Summary
**Overall Rating**: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (X/5)

### Issues Found
| # | Severity | Category | Description | Line(s) |
|---|----------|----------|-------------|---------|

### Recommendations
[Numbered list of improvements]

### Positive Notes
[What the code does well]
  1. Click Create Agent

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Step 2: Publish as MCP Tool

  1. Open your Code Reviewer agent
  2. Click the MCP Publish button in the header bar
  3. The button changes to MCP Published (green ✅)
That’s it. Your agent is now discoverable and callable via MCP.
What happens behind the scenes: The agent becomes available at your workspace’s MCP endpoint as a tool named code_reviewer (auto-derived from the agent name). The tool accepts a message string parameter and executes the full agent — same model, system prompt, tools, knowledge base, and voice profile as running from the UI.

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Step 3: Generate an MCP API Key

  1. Go to Settings → MCP Servers
  2. Click Generate MCP API Key
  3. A key prefixed with cf_mcp_ will be generated
  4. Copy the key — you’ll need it for the next step
Each key is scoped to a single workspace. Only that workspace’s published agents are visible to clients using that key.

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Step 4: Configure Claude Desktop

  1. Open Claude Desktop → Settings → Developer → MCP Servers
  2. Add a new server with this configuration:
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "crewform": {
      "url": "https://runner.crewform.tech/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer cf_mcp_your_key_here"
      }
    }
  }
}
  1. Restart Claude Desktop
Self-hosted? Replace the URL with your task runner’s public URL: https://your-domain.com/mcp

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Step 5: Test It

  1. Open a new conversation in Claude Desktop
  2. Ask Claude something like:
Can you review this TypeScript function for issues?

function getUser(id: string) {
  const user = db.query("SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = " + id);
  return user[0];
}
  1. Claude will recognize that it has a code_reviewer tool available and call your CrewForm agent
  2. Your agent executes with its full configuration and returns the review
  3. Claude presents the result in the conversation

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Step 6: Configure Cursor (Alternative)

If you prefer Cursor over Claude Desktop:
  1. Create .cursor/mcp.json in your project root:
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "crewform": {
      "url": "https://runner.crewform.tech/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer cf_mcp_your_key_here"
      }
    }
  }
}
  1. Restart Cursor — your CrewForm agents now appear as available tools

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Publishing Multiple Agents

You can publish as many agents as you want from the same workspace:
  1. Open each agent → click MCP Publish
  2. All published agents appear as separate tools under the same MCP server
  3. Tool names are auto-derived: “Data Analyst” → data_analyst, “Bug Fixer” → bug_fixer
Claude Desktop (or any MCP client) will see all published agents as available tools and choose the right one based on context.

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Unpublishing

To remove an agent from MCP:
  1. Open the agent → click MCP Published (the green button)
  2. It toggles back to unpublished immediately
  3. The agent disappears from the MCP tool list

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Advanced: Full Team Execution

When you publish an agent that belongs to a team, the MCP tool still executes just that individual agent. If you want to trigger a full pipeline or orchestrator team via MCP, create a dedicated “gateway” agent whose system prompt delegates to the appropriate team.

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Troubleshooting

IssueSolution
Claude doesn’t show the toolRestart Claude Desktop after adding the config
”Unauthorized” errorCheck your cf_mcp_ key is correct and not expired
Tool call times outComplex agents may take longer — consider increasing client timeout
Agent not in tool listMake sure the agent is published (green MCP Published button)

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What’s Next?

  • A2A Protocol — Let external agents discover and delegate tasks to your CrewForm agents
  • AG-UI Protocol — Build rich, interactive agent UIs with streaming
  • Knowledge Base — Give your published agents access to your documents