createChannel - Copilotkit

createChannel(options) creates the provider-neutral Channel registered with CopilotRuntime({ channels }).

Signature

function createChannel<TStateSchema>(
  options: CreateChannelOptions<TStateSchema>,
): Channel<ThreadStateOf<TStateSchema>>;

Import it from the umbrella package:

import { createChannel } from "@copilotkit/channels";

Managed example

const channel = createChannel({
  name: "support-slack",
  provider: "slack",
  agent: makeAgent,
  tools: [getIncident],
  context: [
    {
      description: "Response style",
      value: "Put the next action first.",
    },
  ],
});

channel.onMessage(async ({ thread, message }) => {
  await thread.runAgent({ prompt: message.text });
});

Use provider: "teams" with the exact Code of the corresponding Teams Channel in Intelligence. Slack and Teams are production-ready managed providers.

Options

Option	Type	Notes
`name`	`string`	Required for managed delivery. Must match the project-unique Intelligence Code.
`provider`	`"slack" \| "teams"`	Managed provider. Defaults to Slack when omitted; set it explicitly.
`showToolStatus`	`boolean`	Managed Slack hides tool-call progress by default. Set `true` to show it; tool history remains available in Intelligence either way.
`agent`	`AbstractAgent \| (threadId) => AbstractAgent`	Prefer a factory; a singleton is isolated per run via `clone()`.
`tools`	`ChannelTool[]`	Channel-level typed tools.
`context`	`ContextEntry[]`	Stable context added to every agent run.
`components`	`ChannelComponent[]`	Named JSX components used to reconstruct callbacks.
`commands`	`ChannelCommand[]`	Declared commands routed from provider ingress.
`store`	`StoreConfig`	State, persistence, turn concurrency (`parallel` default), transcripts, and dedup.
`adapters`	`PlatformAdapter[]`	Developer-owned direct transports. Do not mix them with managed activation on one Channel.

The managed runtime validates name as lowercase kebab-case, 3–64 characters, not equal to channels, and unique within the Runtime.

Registration methods

The returned Channel supports:

onMessage and onMention
onInterrupt
onInteraction
onCommand
onReaction
onThreadStarted
onModalSubmit and onModalClose for adapters that support modals
tool to add a tool before the Channel starts

See Channel for handler signatures and StoreConfig for persistence.