Agent Channels
Agent Channels (ach) is a CLI that bridges your communicatino channels, such as Slack, to agents like Claude Managed Agents. Mention the bot in any channel or DM and each thread becomes a multi-turn streaming session with your agent — tools, vaults, and all.
Agent Channels is right for you if
- ✅ You've built (or want to build) a Claude Managed Agent and need to put it in front of a team
- ✅ You want to build agents once and provide them across multiple channels
- ✅ You want to provide your agents to your colleagues through Slack, without building a separate app for them
- ✅ You don't want to build messy connectors between agents and communication channels yourself
- ✅ You want multi-turn conversations per thread, not one-shot Q&A bots
- ✅ You want streaming responses that appear in real time, not 30-second waits for a wall of text
Quick Start
Set up a Claude Managed Agent on Slack in three commands:
# Install
brew install agentchannels/tap/ach
# Set up agent, environment, vault, and Slack app — one interactive wizard
ach init slack
# Start the bot
ach serve
That's it. ach init slack selects or creates your Claude Managed Agent and Environment, optionally links a Vault, configures your Slack app, and writes everything to .env. Then ach serve picks it all up automatically.
Prefer Claude Code? Install the plugin (see Installation below), then run /agentchannels:init-slack and /agentchannels:serve inside Claude Code. Jump to Use from Claude Code for details.
Installation
Claude Code plugin
Install directly into Claude Code — no git clone needed:
claude plugin marketplace add agentchannels/agentchannels
claude plugin install agentchannels@agentchannels
Then use /agentchannels:init-slack and /agentchannels:serve inside Claude Code. See Use from Claude Code for what each skill does.
To update: claude plugin update agentchannels@agentchannels
macOS (Homebrew)
brew install agentchannels/tap/ach
npm
npm install -g agentchannels
Requires Node.js >= 18.
npx (no install)
npx agentchannels init slack
npx agentchannels serve
Requires Node.js >= 18.
From source
git clone https://github.com/anthropics/agentchannels.git
cd agentchannels
pnpm install && pnpm build
pnpm link --global
Prerequisites
- Anthropic API key with Managed Agents access — console.anthropic.com
- Slack workspace where you can create apps
Configuration
All config can be provided via environment variables, a .env file, or CLI flags (highest priority wins).
| Variable | CLI flag | Description |
|---|
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY | --anthropic-api-key | Anthropic API key |
CLAUDE_AGENT_ID | --agent-id | Claude Managed Agent ID |
CLAUDE_ENVIRONMENT_ID | --environment-id | Claude Environment ID |
CLAUDE_VAULT_IDS | --vault-ids | Comma-separated vault IDs for MCP authentication (optional) |
SLACK_BOT_TOKEN | --slack-bot-token | Slack bot token (xoxb-...) |
SLACK_APP_TOKEN | --slack-app-token | Slack app-level token (xapp-...) for Socket Mode |
The ach init slack wizard (or /agentchannels:init-slack in Claude Code) writes these to .env automatically — you shouldn't need to edit this file by hand.
CLI Reference
ach init slack
Interactive wizard that handles complete setup in one flow:
- Anthropic API key — validated up front; invalid keys re-prompt instead of crashing the wizard
- Claude Managed Agent — pick from the list, create a new one, or paste an existing agent ID
- Environment — pick from the list, create a new one, or paste an existing environment ID
- Vaults (optional) — multi-select from the list, paste comma-separated IDs, or skip (provides MCP OAuth credentials to sessions)
- Slack app — three modes: automatic (creates the app via the Slack API), guided (walks you through api.slack.com), or manual (paste tokens you already have)