Building a Production-Ready Slack Agent with Channels SDK

By Nathan Tarbert and Anmol Baranwal
August 13, 2026
Building a Production-Ready Slack Agent with Channels SDK

We ran a live webinar where Mike Ryan (engineer and architect) on our team, built a production-ready Slack agent using Mastra from start to finish using Channels SDK.

Following the full production path, including a deployed agent backend, connected through runtime, operated by CopilotKit Intelligence, running natively in a Slack workspace.

Here's the full recording, plus a breakdown of what he covered.

Connect any agent framework

Wire in a LangGraph, CrewAI, Microsoft Agent Framework, or custom AG-UI agent. The backend runs wherever you deploy it and connects through the runtime, so you are not locked to one framework or one host.

Define the experience

Write Channels JSX once, and it renders as native Block Kit in Slack. One definition gives you real Slack UI: sections, buttons, tables. Learn more about our Channels UI component library that gives you all the building blocks.

Stream and act in context

Tool calls and streamed responses land back in the thread where the work started in. The agent acts where the conversation is happening, so context stays intact across the exchange.

Make approvals native

Human-in-the-loop decisions route through Block Kit, right in the thread. Approvals happen in Slack, not on a separate dashboard, so whoever is confirming never has to leave the channel.

Take it to production

Provider connectivity, delivery and retries, and durable channel state keep threads continuous. This is what separates a demo from something you can ship: it holds up when the network drops and when scale hits.

He also took questions live throughout the build, including the ones about auth, edge cases, and what breaks at scale.

Get started

The Channels SDK is open source. Bring your own agent into Slack in a few minutes.

Get started by creating a free API key and connecting your first channel.

Talk to our engineers, and we will help you set up.

Follow CopilotKit on Twitter. If you get stuck, reach out in the CopilotKit or AG-UI communities.

Top posts

See All
Introducing A2UI 1.0: What's New in Google's Framework-Agnostic Generative UI Protocol
Anmol Baranwal and Eli BermanNovember 11, 2026
Introducing A2UI 1.0: What's New in Google's Framework-Agnostic Generative UI ProtocolGoogle just launched A2UI 1.0, the stable, framework-agnostic open standard for generative UI. It adds function calls in both directions between the UI and the agent, many catalogs on one surface, catalogs that carry your design rules, a full UI in a single message, richer validation, user-initiated functions and built-in accessibility. Here’s everything that’s new, how to migrate from v0.9 and how to use A2UI 1.0 with any agent framework via AG-UI in two lines of code, with CopilotKit’s standard catalog of 70 ready-made components.
Introducing OpenBot 1.0: An Agent Workspace You Can Make Your Own
Sam Julien and Anmol BaranwalNovember 10, 2026
Introducing OpenBot 1.0: An Agent Workspace You Can Make Your OwnToday we’re releasing OpenBot 1.0, the modular, self-hostable agent workspace with built-in governance. Create a Bot or bring your own agent, pick any model, and connect it to your tools, while you decide what it can do on its own. Run it free on Mac or Windows, or deploy OpenBot for Business on your own infrastructure with SSO and a full audit trail.
What’s new in OpenBot 1.0 - the open-source alternative to Grok Bot, OpenAI dots, Muse and Duet
Anmol Baranwal and Eli BermanNovember 10, 2026
What’s new in OpenBot 1.0 - the open-source alternative to Grok Bot, OpenAI dots, Muse and DuetOpenBot 1.0 is out with major upgrades to the modular, self-hostable agent workspace. It now has a desktop app for Mac and Windows with a three-click setup, sign-in with your Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini or xAI plan, skins for OpenDuet, OpenDots and OpenMuse, and Teach a Bot. It also adds subagents and check-ins, generative UI on A2UI 1.0, and hundreds of apps through Composio and Arcade. For teams, OpenBot for Business adds SSO, boundaries, audit and enterprise controls.
Are you ready?

Stay in the know

Subscribe to our blog and get updates on CopilotKit in your inbox.