OpenTag: An open-source alternative to Claude in Slack

CopilotKit released OpenTag, an open-source, self-hosted AI agent for Slack that reads threads, answers questions, calls tools, and renders rich results inline. The tool allows users to bring their own model and tools, avoiding per-seat pricing and vendor lock-in, and also supports Discord, Telegram, and WhatsApp.

Run your own AI agent inside Slack: it reads a thread, answers, calls your tools, and renders rich results right in the conversation. Think of it as having Claude in your workspace, except open-source and self-hosted : you own the runtime, bring your own model, and wire it to your own tools. No per-seat pricing, no lock-in. It's built on — CopilotKit's open SDK for chat-platform agents Slack first; the same code also runs on Discord, Telegram, and WhatsApp . Clone it, point it at your model and tools, and you own the whole stack. @copilotkit/bot demo-slack-opentag.mp4 Watch the demo ~50s — an OpenTag agent working a Slack thread: it renders a breakdown, a table, and a bar chart inline generative UI and files a ticket only after an Approve gate human-in-the-loop . Two ways to run it:host it yourselfwith the open-source SDK below — or skip the ops andcoming soon from CopilotKit. sign up for the managed service → OpenTag ships inside the CopilotKit monorepo https://github.com/CopilotKit/CopilotKit as a first-class example examples/slack . That's the dependable way to run it today while the bot SDK packages finish publishing to npm. A standalone npm install from this repo lights up the moment they land — see setup.md /CopilotKit/OpenTag/blob/main/setup.md . You'll run two processes: the agent the LLM backend and the bot the Slack connection — and set three secrets. 1. Create a Slack app. At api.slack.com/apps https://api.slack.com/apps?new app=1 → From a manifest → paste slack-app-manifest.yaml /CopilotKit/OpenTag/blob/main/slack-app-manifest.yaml . Install it, then grab the Bot User OAuth Token xoxb-… and an App-Level Token xapp-… , with the connections:write scope . Step-by-step in setup.md /CopilotKit/OpenTag/blob/main/setup.md 1-create-a-slack-app . 2. Set three secrets in .env cp .env.example .env : SLACK BOT TOKEN=xoxb-... SLACK APP TOKEN=xapp-... OPENAI API KEY=sk-... or ANTHROPIC API KEY — bring your own model 3. Run it from the CopilotKit monorepo root: pnpm install pnpm --filter slack-example runtime the agent backend, on :8200 pnpm --filter slack-example dev the bot 4. Talk to it. @mention the bot in any channel thread: @OpenTag summarize this thread and file it as a bug That's the whole loop. To wire up Linear, Notion, inline charts, Redis persistence, or to run on Discord / Telegram / WhatsApp, see setup.md . We won't lie to you, though. Setting up hosting for chat agents is not easy. To skip all of that heartache, go join the waitlist https://go.copilotkit.ai/opentag-managed-gh for the CopilotKit managed service hosted on our Intelligence platform. OpenTag is deliberately small and hackable: Change what it does. The agent's behavior is steered by a single system prompt in— rewrite it and you have a different agent. runtime.ts Copy It's the platform-agnostic bot tools, components, the human-in-the-loop gate . app/ to start your own bot. runtime.ts is the agent backend: one CopilotKit BuiltInAgent an LLM + optional MCP tools — no Python, no LangGraph , served over AG-UI. One platform, or all of them. createBot takes an array of adapters; set the secrets for whichever platform s you want and the bot starts an adapter for each. The full architecture, the file-by-file map, and every integration live in setup.md . Self-hosting means you run and scale the runtime, persistence, and inspection tooling yourself. A managed CopilotKit service is on its way. It's the same agent, without the ops: durable threads, persistence, hosted inspection, and agents that improve from feedback Continuous Learning from Human Feedback . — be first in when the managed service opens. Join the waitlist → https://go.copilotkit.ai/opentag-managed-gh — building something real on this? We'd love to help you ship it. Talk to an engineer → https://copilotkit.ai/talk-to-an-engineer The CopilotKit Slack quickstart is the canonical guide to building a Slack agent — read it alongside this starter. Detailed setup and configuration lives in . setup.md /CopilotKit/OpenTag/blob/main/setup.md MIT — see LICENSE /CopilotKit/OpenTag/blob/main/LICENSE .