# Set up with a coding agent
> The agent-driven setup path: npx copilotkit@latest channels setup, the hosted channels-guide.md workflow, installing setup-slack-channel via the CLI instead of vendoring it, and how this repository's canonical .agents/skills layout and .claude symlink keep the build-channels-agent skill authoritative.
- Repository: CopilotKit/channels-sdk
- GitHub: https://github.com/CopilotKit/channels-sdk
- Human docs: https://grok-wiki.com/public/docs/copilotkit-channels-sdk-4c947e3e6161
- Complete Markdown: https://grok-wiki.com/public/docs/copilotkit-channels-sdk-4c947e3e6161/llms-full.txt
## Source Files
- `README.md`
- `AGENTS.md`
- `.agents/skills/build-channels-agent/SKILL.md`
- `.agents/skills/build-channels-agent/evals/evals.json`
---
---
title: "Set up with a coding agent"
description: "The agent-driven setup path: npx copilotkit@latest channels setup, the hosted channels-guide.md workflow, installing setup-slack-channel via the CLI instead of vendoring it, and how this repository's canonical .agents/skills layout and .claude symlink keep the build-channels-agent skill authoritative."
---
`npx copilotkit@latest channels setup` is the fastest path to a working Channel: it installs the `channels-setup` skill, prints a prompt, and copies that prompt to your clipboard for you to paste into your coding agent. The installed skill is a pointer, not a workflow — it fetches the actual steps from `https://copilotkit.ai/channels-guide.md` when the agent needs them, so the instructions stay current even if the skill on disk is months old. Building a Channels agent spans a project, an agent, a managed Channel, a provider app, and a long-running runtime; the hosted guide walks the agent through all of it.
## Run the guided setup
```sh
npx copilotkit@latest channels setup
```
Keep the `@latest`. A bare `copilotkit` resolves to whatever is already on PATH or in the npx cache, and an older CLI fails with `Unknown option '--skill'` on related subcommands.
The command copies the prompt to your clipboard. Its content is:
```text
Read https://copilotkit.ai/channels-guide.md and help the user build their first channel
```
The hosted guide asks which platform you want — Slack or Microsoft Teams — and which agent framework. It then covers the same setup as the manual quickstart, plus the provider-console and verification steps.
Your agent operates the Slack and Intelligence consoles itself, in your own signed-in browser session. If the agent has no browser or computer-use tool yet, it asks you to add one first — that is the intended path, not a fallback. You type the secrets; the agent does the clicking.
Microsoft Teams setup, and any setup question the Slack skill does not cover, goes through this hosted guide. It is fetched on demand, so prefer it over a remembered sequence of steps.
## Install the Slack setup skill on disk
To skip the hosted guide and put the Slack workflow directly into the coding agent you are already running in:
```sh
npx copilotkit@latest skills install --skill setup-slack-channel -y
```
Installs that one skill. `setup-slack-channel` covers the provider half of Slack setup: creating the Slack app, the managed Intelligence Channel, the local runtime, and diagnosing a Channel stuck at `setup_required` or a mention that gets no reply.
Installs the named skill without opening an interactive picker.
Omit `--skill` to install every CopilotKit skill:
```sh
npx copilotkit@latest skills install
```
The skill is scoped to Slack — for Microsoft Teams, use the hosted guide above.
### What the CLI covers versus the browser
The CLI handles the Intelligence side; the provider side stays in the browser, in your session.
| Surface | Operations |
| --- | --- |
| CLI | `copilotkit channels add --adapter slack` declares the Channel and attaches the adapter; `copilotkit channels status` compares your configuration, your code, and the server |
| Browser | Creating the Slack app, installing it into a workspace, issuing the project API key |
No CLI flag accepts a credential value, so the bot token and signing secret stay in your `.env` and with you.
## Why setup-slack-channel is installed, not vendored
`setup-slack-channel` lives in `CopilotKit/CopilotKit` and is delivered by the CLI. This repository does not carry a copy, and `AGENTS.md` instructs agents never to add one.
The rule comes from a concrete failure. This repository previously vendored the skill under `.agents/skills/setup-slack-channel/`. That copy fell roughly 16 KB behind its upstream across all eight files and ended up asserting the opposite of the truth about Slack interactivity — that enabling it does not make buttons work, when disabling it is what breaks human-in-the-loop. Nothing enforced the match, and `skills install` writes into that same path, so following the README overwrote eight tracked files. One home, fetched on demand, is why that cannot recur.
`.gitignore` now enforces the boundary — paths that `skills install` writes are untracked:
```gitignore
# Skills fetched from the CopilotKit registry, not owned here (see AGENTS.md).
/.agents/skills/setup-slack-channel/
/agent/
/skills-lock.json
```
## The canonical skill layout
The repository ships exactly one skill it owns: `build-channels-agent`. `AGENTS.md` designates it the authority on the Channels SDK API — the API is recent and easy to get wrong from memory, so agents are told to ground code in the skill rather than in recalled patterns.
:::files
repo/
├── AGENTS.md # skill ownership rules for agents
├── .agents/
│ └── skills/
│ └── build-channels-agent/ # canonical home — edit here
│ ├── SKILL.md # the API authority
│ ├── references/
│ │ ├── adapter-authoring.md
│ │ ├── hitl-patterns.md
│ │ └── ui-components.md
│ └── evals/
│ └── evals.json # 8 evals guarding the API surface
└── .claude/
└── skills/
└── build-channels-agent -> ../../.agents/skills/build-channels-agent
:::
`.claude/skills/` mirrors the canonical layout for Claude Code, which discovers skills there. `.claude/skills/build-channels-agent` is a symlink to the canonical copy under `.agents/skills/` — edit the canonical file, never the link, so the two cannot drift apart.
### What the skill guarantees
`build-channels-agent/SKILL.md` states that every code sample in it compiles: the samples were transcribed into one project and typechecked under `strict` against both `@copilotkit/channels@0.7.1` + `@copilotkit/runtime@1.66.1` and the `0.6.1` + `1.65.0` pair, with zero errors on both. The `evals/evals.json` file defines eight scenario evals that pin the correct API surface — for example, that generated code uses `createChannel`/`defineChannelTool` rather than the `Bot`-prefixed names that exist nowhere in the shipped packages, defaults to the managed path when the developer does not hold Slack tokens, and gates startup on `status().overall === "online"` instead of trusting `ready()` alone.
### Division of labor between the two skills
| Skill | Home | Covers |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `build-channels-agent` | This repository, `.agents/skills/` | Writing the code: `createChannel`, handlers, tools, slash commands, JSX message UI, modals, human-in-the-loop, the runtime wiring that starts a Channel |
| `setup-slack-channel` | `CopilotKit/CopilotKit`, installed via CLI | The provider half: Slack app creation, the managed Intelligence Channel, the local runtime, and diagnosing `setup_required`, Waiting for runtime, or a silent mention |
## Troubleshooting
An older `copilotkit` — globally installed or left in the npx cache — is shadowing the current CLI. Keep the `@latest` in the command; that is what forces npx to fetch the current version instead of reusing what it already has.
The hosted guide expects the agent to drive the Slack and Intelligence consoles in your signed-in session. An agent without a browser or computer-use tool will ask you to add one before continuing — add the tool rather than falling back to copying steps by hand.
## Related pages
The same setup done by hand: create the Channel, write the listener, set the environment variables, and verify `status().overall === "online"`.
The package pair, ESM requirement, `@ag-ui/client` overrides pin, and tsconfig the generated code depends on.
Why the setup path defaults to a managed Channel, and why switching to a direct adapter to escape `setup_required` is a known failure mode.
The stale-CLI error, `setup_required`, Waiting for runtime, and the other documented failure modes with fixes.