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Adding External Tools

The CEO OS works without external tools, but adding analytics and research capabilities makes it significantly more powerful.

Architecture

Most modern agents (OpenClaw 2026.4+, Claude Code, Claude Cowork, Cursor, Codex, OpenCode, etc.) support MCP natively — the agent calls MCP tools directly as function calls, no CLI bridge needed.

Agent -> mcp_call(server.tool, {param: value}) -> MCP Server -> Response

Older agents without native MCP support can still use these skills via mcporter, a CLI bridge — but most users won't need that.

Configure MCP servers

The exact place to add MCP servers depends on your agent. For OpenClaw:

# Add a server (stdio or remote-http)
openclaw mcp set <name> '{"url": "https://...", "transport": "streamable-http", "headers": {...}}'

# List configured servers
openclaw mcp list

# Restart gateway to pick up changes
sudo systemctl restart openclaw.service

For Claude Code: edit ~/.claude/settings.json or use claude mcp add. For Cursor / OpenCode / Codex: see their docs.

After adding a server, send /new in chat to refresh the session.

Adding PostHog

1. Get your PostHog API key

Go to PostHog > Project Settings > Personal API Keys > Create key.

2. Add to your MCP config (OpenClaw example)

openclaw mcp set posthog '{
  "url": "https://mcp.posthog.com/mcp",
  "transport": "streamable-http",
  "headers": {
    "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_POSTHOG_PERSONAL_API_KEY"
  }
}'

3. Test

In chat, ask the agent to call posthog__event-definitions-list. You should see your project's events.

4. Configure the skill

Edit workspace/skills/posthog-analytics/SKILL.md:

  • Set your project IDs
  • Add your event catalog
  • Update query recipes for your events

5. Update TOOLS.md

Add a PostHog section to workspace/TOOLS.md.

Adding Exa Search

1. Get Exa API key

Sign up at exa.ai and get an API key.

2. Add three MCP entries (one per Exa tool subset)

openclaw mcp set exa-search '{
  "url": "https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp?tools=web_search_advanced_exa",
  "transport": "streamable-http",
  "headers": {"x-api-key": "YOUR_EXA_API_KEY"}
}'

openclaw mcp set exa-deep '{
  "url": "https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp?tools=deep_search_exa",
  "transport": "streamable-http",
  "headers": {"x-api-key": "YOUR_EXA_API_KEY"}
}'

openclaw mcp set exa-code '{
  "url": "https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp?tools=get_code_context_exa",
  "transport": "streamable-http",
  "headers": {"x-api-key": "YOUR_EXA_API_KEY"}
}'

3. Test

In chat, ask the agent to run exa-search__web_search_advanced_exa query="AI startups" category=company numResults=5.

Adding Grafana Cloud (optional)

openclaw mcp set grafana '{
  "command": "uvx",
  "args": ["mcp-grafana"],
  "env": {
    "GRAFANA_URL": "https://yourstack.grafana.net",
    "GRAFANA_API_KEY": "YOUR_GRAFANA_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_TOKEN"
  }
}'

Adding agent-browser

# Install
npm install -g agent-browser

# Create symlink so the agent's exec tool can find it
sudo ln -sf $(which agent-browser) /usr/local/bin/agent-browser

# Optional: Install Lightpanda for faster, lighter browsing
# See https://github.com/nichochar/agent-browser for details

Important Notes

  • MCP transport types: stdio (command+args+env), HTTP (url+headers), or streamable-http (url+headers with "transport": "streamable-http").
  • Tool naming convention: <serverName>__<toolName> (double underscore separator).
  • PATH for stdio servers: stdio MCP servers don't read .bashrc. Either use the binary's full path in command, or set PATH in the server's env.
  • Budget: Adding tools doesn't affect the bootstrap context budget. Tool skills load on-demand.
  • After adding tools: Update workspace/TOOLS.md, then send /new in chat to reload the session.