Deploy AI Agents That Leverage Hundreds of MCP Services
Building AI agents that can interact with the real world—like pulling data from Slack, updating a Google Sheet, or triggering a Discord message—usually means writing a lot of custom integration code. It’s time-consuming and locks you into specific platforms.
What if you could instead deploy an AI agent that could instantly tap into hundreds of existing tools and services, using a standardized protocol? That’s the idea behind combining an automation platform with the Model Context Protocol (MCP). It shifts the focus from writing glue code to defining what you want your agent to accomplish.
What It Does
Activepieces is an open-source automation platform that lets you visually build workflows (or “pieces”) by connecting triggers and actions from a wide array of apps and services. Think of it like a developer-friendly, self-hostable alternative to Zapier or Make.
The key here is its support for the Model Context Protocol (MCP). MCP is an open protocol that allows AI models and agents to securely connect to external data sources and tools. By integrating MCP, Activepieces enables you to deploy AI agents that aren't just conversational—they’re operational. These agents can use the hundreds of pre-built connectors (for services like GitHub, Notion, Stripe, etc.) as tools to read information and take actions in the real world.
Why It’s Cool
The cool factor isn't just the number of integrations. It's the architecture. Instead of painstakingly teaching your LLM how to use each API, you're giving it access to a uniform, structured toolkit through MCP. This means:
- Rapid Agent Development: You can prototype an AI customer support agent that checks a help desk, updates a CRM, and sends a Slack summary in minutes, not days.
- Separation of Concerns: The LLM handles the reasoning and decision-making (“the user needs a refund, let me fetch their order and process it”). The MCP servers (hosted via Activepieces) handle the secure, reliable execution of the actual API calls.
- Open and Extensible: Since both Activepieces and MCP are open-source, you can audit the code, add your own private connectors, or host everything on your own infrastructure for maximum control and data privacy.
It turns the AI agent from a chatty consultant into a skilled worker with the keys to your entire tech stack.
How to Try It
The easiest way to get a feel for Activepieces is to check out their live demo. You can explore the drag-and-drop workflow builder and see all the available connectors without installing anything.
- Live Demo: https://cloud.activepieces.com/
To build MCP-powered agents, you’ll want to dive into the repository. The README provides clear instructions for self-hosting with Docker.
- Clone the repo:
git clone https://github.com/activepieces/activepieces.git - Follow the setup guide in the README to run it locally or deploy it.
- Explore the documentation on how to configure and utilize MCP servers within your pieces.
Final Thoughts
As someone who’s wrestled with building functional AI agents, this approach feels like a logical next step. The hard part shouldn't be teaching an LLM the intricacies of the Jira API; it should be designing the agent's goals and logic. By leveraging a battle-tested automation platform as the “execution layer” via MCP, you get reliability and a massive ecosystem for free.
If you're experimenting with AI agents that need to do more than just generate text, this combo is definitely worth a look. It lets you focus on the “what” and the “why,” while it handles the “how.”
Found an interesting project? Share it with us @githubprojects.
Repository: https://github.com/activepieces/activepieces