Channels is built for a world where the same agent can meet users across every communication surface. Managed connections for Slack and Microsoft Teams are available through CopilotKit Intelligence, with more channels on the way.

Experience a real Channels agent in Slack or Microsoft Teams without configuring an app, runtime, or provider credentials.

Choose a platform, join the experience, and see how an agent handles context, tool use, and native channel UI.

Your agent and application logic run in your infrastructure. CopilotKit Intelligence manages the platform connection and delivers each turn to your long-running Channels process.

Building a Channels agent spans a project, an agent, a managed Channel, a provider app, and a long-running runtime. One guide walks your agent through all of it.

npx copilotkit@latest channels setup

That installs the channels-setup skill, prints a prompt, and copies it to your clipboard. Paste it into your coding agent.

The skill is a pointer — it fetches the workflow from copilotkit.ai/channels-guide.md when your agent needs it, so the steps are current even if the installed skill is months old. The guide asks which platform you want, Slack or Microsoft Teams, and which agent framework.

Your agent drives the Slack and Intelligence consoles itself, in your own signed-in session. If it has no browser or computer-use tool yet, it will ask you to add one first — that is the intended path, not a fallback. You type the secrets; it does the clicking.

npx copilotkit@latest skills install --skill setup-slack-channel -y

The steps below are the same path, done by hand.

Create a Channel in CopilotKit Intelligence and connect Slack. Keep the Channel Code and project-scoped Intelligence API key for the next steps.

You need Node.js 22 or later and a long-running Node process or container.

npm install @copilotkit/channels @copilotkit/runtime
npm install --save-dev tsx typescript @types/node
npm pkg set type=module

Channels and Runtime ship together as a tested pair. Upgrade both packages together.

The example below uses CopilotKit's built-in agent. Replace makeAgent with any AG-UI-compatible agent factory without changing the Channel lifecycle.

// channel.ts
import { createServer } from "node:http";
import { createChannel } from "@copilotkit/channels";
import {
  BuiltInAgent,
  CopilotKitIntelligence,
  CopilotRuntime,
} from "@copilotkit/runtime/v2";
import { createCopilotNodeListener } from "@copilotkit/runtime/v2/node";

function required(name: string): string {
  const value = process.env[name];
  if (!value) throw new Error(`Missing required environment variable: ${name}`);
  return value;
}

function makeAgent(threadId: string) {
  const agent = new BuiltInAgent({ model: "openai:gpt-5.4-mini" });
  agent.threadId = threadId;
  return agent;
}

const channel = createChannel({
  name: required("CHANNEL_CODE"),
  identifyUser: "platform",
  agent: makeAgent,
});

channel.onMessage(async ({ thread, message }) => {
  await thread.runAgent({
    prompt: message.contentParts?.length
      ? [
          ...(message.text
            ? [{ type: "text" as const, text: message.text }]
            : []),
          ...message.contentParts,
        ]
      : message.text,
    context: [{ description: "Originating platform", value: message.platform }],
  });
});

const intelligence = new CopilotKitIntelligence({
  apiKey: required("INTELLIGENCE_API_KEY"),
});

const runtime = new CopilotRuntime({
  agents: {},
  intelligence,
  identifyUser: () => ({
    id: "channels-runtime",
    name: "Channels Runtime",
  }),
  channels: [channel],
});

const listener = createCopilotNodeListener({
  runtime,
  basePath: "/api/copilotkit",
});

const channels = listener.channels;
if (!channels) throw new Error("Channels control surface was not created.");

const server = createServer(listener);
const shutdown = async () => {
  await channels.stop();
  if (server.listening) server.close();
};
process.once("SIGINT", shutdown);
process.once("SIGTERM", shutdown);

await channels.ready({ timeoutMs: 30_000 });

const status = channels.status();
if (status.overall !== "online") {
  throw new Error(`Channel is not online: ${JSON.stringify(status)}`);
}

const port = Number(process.env.PORT ?? 3000);
server.listen(port, () => {
  console.log(`Channel online; lifecycle server listening on :${port}`);
});

# .env
OPENAI_API_KEY=<openai-api-key>
INTELLIGENCE_API_KEY=<project-api-key>
CHANNEL_CODE=<channel-code-from-intelligence>
PORT=3000

node --env-file=.env --import tsx channel.ts

When Intelligence reports Online, invite the app to a Slack channel and mention it. Your agent now receives the conversation and responds in the thread.

Want Microsoft Teams, a different agent framework, interactive approvals, files, or production deployment guidance? Continue in the Channels documentation.

Rather have your agent do it? Run npx copilotkit@latest channels setup from Fastest path above. The guide covers this same setup plus the provider and verification steps.

Every turn follows the same path:

1. A person messages your app in Slack or Microsoft Teams.
2. CopilotKit Intelligence receives the platform event and delivers it to your Channels process.
3. Channels runs your agent over AG-UI, executes tools, and renders the result.
4. Intelligence sends native platform UI back into the conversation.

The SDK is open source and MIT licensed. CopilotKit Intelligence can be hosted by CopilotKit or self-hosted for enterprise deployments.

OpenTag is an open-source, self-hosted on-call triage assistant built with Channels.

Use it to study a complete application with:

• a Python LangGraph agent connected over AG-UI
• native Slack and Microsoft Teams experiences
• file-aware prompts and generative UI
• human approval before Linear or Notion writes
• a production-shaped Node runtime and agent service