Claude Threads

August 10, 2026 · View on GitHub

_{Claude Code × Slack & Mattermost}

Run Claude Code from your team's chat. The bot lives on your machine, next to your checkout and your local tools. Sessions stream live into Slack or Mattermost threads where teammates watch and steer what Claude does. No cloud sandbox and no enterprise plan required: it works with the Claude subscription or API key you already have.

Think of it as screen-sharing for AI pair programming, but everyone can type.


_Slack	_Mattermost

How it works

Mention the bot in a channel: @claude fix the flaky test in ci.yml
It spawns a real Claude Code session in a working directory on your machine.
Everything streams into the thread: output, diffs, task lists, permission prompts.
Steer by replying in the thread or reacting with emoji. Anyone you invite can do the same.

Features

Live streaming - Responses, tool calls, diffs, and a sticky task list render in the thread as the session runs
Slack and Mattermost - Connect multiple workspaces at once. Mattermost support means this also works where chat is self-hosted and cloud assistants cannot go
A session per thread - Concurrent sessions, each with its own working directory, resumed automatically after a bot restart
Your machine, your setup - Sessions use your local checkout plus whatever MCP servers and plugins you already configured
Your existing subscription - Any Claude Pro/Max account or API key works. An optional multi-account pool routes each new session to the account with the most subscription headroom and cools down rate-limited ones (docs)
Permission control by emoji - default prompts the thread for every tool use (👍/✅/👎), auto lets Claude's classifier approve low-risk actions, bypass skips prompts entirely. Switch per session with !permissions
Collaboration - !invite teammates into a session; commits Claude makes get Co-Authored-By: trailers for everyone involved
A real chat citizen - Nine MCP tools let Claude post files, follow permalinks, react, and DM, each behind its own guardrail (see What Claude can do in your chat)
Git worktrees - !worktree feature/foo isolates Claude's changes on a branch
Files both ways - Drop any file into the chat for Claude to read, with full multimodal for images and PDFs; Claude posts screenshots, plots, or PDFs back with send_file (100 MB cap)
Quiet mode and verbosity dials - !mentions on makes a session respond only when mentioned; session headers and the channel sticky each have full/minimal/hidden modes
Runs on macOS, Linux, and Windows - Windows via Git Bash or WSL
Auto-update - The bot watches npm for new versions; !update now applies one from chat

What Claude can do in your chat

Each session runs its own MCP server, giving Claude tools that act on the chat platform. Every tool carries its own guardrail; nothing reaches beyond the channels the bot can already see.

Tool	What Claude does with it	Guardrail
`send_file`	Post a file from the working directory into the thread	Path validated against the session working directory
`read_post`	Resolve a Slack or Mattermost permalink to its content	Bot's channel plus public channels only
`list_thread`	Read the current thread, or a permalinked one	Same channel scoping
`read_channel_history`	Read recent messages from a channel	Bot's channel plus public channels, capped at 100 messages
`search_messages`	Search messages	Mattermost only, capped at 25 results
`react_to_post`	Add an emoji reaction	Defaults to the message that triggered it
`update_own_post`	Edit one of its earlier posts	Bot-authored posts only
`send_dm`	Send a direct message to a channel member	3 per recipient per session; the thread approves each one
`permission_prompt`	Ask the thread to approve a tool use	This one is the approval flow (👍/✅/👎)

The full reference, including inputs and scoping rules, is in docs/MCP-TOOLS.md.

Quick Start

# Install (pick one)
bun install -g claude-threads   # with Bun (recommended)
npm install -g claude-threads   # with npm

# Run the setup wizard
cd /your/project
claude-threads

The interactive wizard configures your Slack or Mattermost bot, tests the credentials, and gets you running in minutes. For creating the bot account itself, follow the Setup Guide.

Prerequisites

Bun 1.2.21+ or Node 20+ - Install Bun or Install Node
Claude Code CLI - test with claude --version (needs a subscription or API key)

Then mention the bot in your channel:

@claude help me fix the bug in src/auth.ts

Session Commands

Type !help in any session thread:

Command	Description
`!help`	Show available commands
`!release-notes`	Show what changed in the running version
`!context`	Show context usage
`!cost`	Show token usage and cost
`!compact`	Compress context to free up space
`!cd <path>`	Change working directory (restarts Claude)
`!permissions <mode>`	Set permission mode: `default` / `auto` / `bypass`
`!mentions [on\|off]`	Quiet mode: only respond when @mentioned (bare `!mentions` toggles)
`!worktree <branch>`	Create and switch to a git worktree (also: `list`, `switch`, `remove`, `cleanup`, `off`)
`!plugin <list\|install\|uninstall> [name]`	Manage Claude Code plugins (restarts Claude)
`!invite @user`	Invite a user to this session (added as `Co-Authored-By:` on commits)
`!kick @user`	Remove an invited user
`!github-email <email>`	Register your GitHub noreply email so `!invite` can attribute commits to you
`!update`	Show auto-update status (`!update now` / `!update defer`)
`!bug <desc>`	Report a bug with context (creates a GitHub issue)
`!approve`	Approve pending plan (alternative to 👍; also `!yes`)
`!escape`	Interrupt current task, session stays active (also `!interrupt`)
`!stop`	Stop this session (also `!cancel`)
`!kill`	Emergency shutdown (kills ALL sessions and exits the bot)

Unknown !commands are checked against Claude Code's own slash commands and passed through when they match.

Interactive Controls

Permission approval - When Claude wants to run a tool:

👍 Allow this action
✅ Allow all future actions
👎 Deny

Plan approval - When Claude presents a plan: 👍 approve, 👎 request changes

Questions - React with 1️⃣ 2️⃣ 3️⃣ 4️⃣ to answer multiple choice

Session control - ⏸️ interrupt, ❌ or 🛑 stop, 🔄 resume a timed-out session

Housekeeping - 🔽 collapses long task lists and subagent output; 🐛 on an error post opens a bug report

Collaboration

!invite @colleague    # Let them participate
!kick @colleague      # Remove access

Messages from users outside the session can be approved one at a time by the session owner with a 👍 reaction.

Invited collaborators end up as Co-Authored-By: trailers on commits Claude makes during the session. Each collaborator runs !github-email <their-noreply-address> once (find yours at https://github.com/settings/emails) and the bot remembers it across sessions.

Git Worktrees

Keep your main branch clean while Claude works on features:

@claude on branch feature/add-auth implement user authentication

Or mid-session: !worktree feature/add-auth

Access Control

Restrict who can use the bot during setup, or reconfigure later with claude-threads --setup. An empty allowlist lets anyone in the channel start sessions, so leave it empty only in channels you trust.

Who may do what (start sessions, react to permission prompts, approve guest messages) is written down in the authorization model.

How it compares

Driving a coding agent from chat is a busy space: Anthropic, OpenAI, Cursor, and Cognition each ship their own integration, and other open-source projects exist too — several of them excellent. The main difference is where the session actually runs.

Product	Sessions run on	Chat platforms	Account
claude-threads (open source, Apache-2.0)	Your machine — local checkout, your MCP servers and plugins	Slack + Mattermost, multiple workspaces at once	Any Claude subscription or API key
Claude Code in Slack / Claude Tag (Anthropic)	Anthropic's cloud, against GitHub repos	Slack	Claude Pro/Max; Claude Tag on Team/Enterprise
Codex in Slack (OpenAI)	OpenAI's Codex cloud	Slack	ChatGPT plan
Cursor in Slack	Cursor's cloud agents	Slack	Cursor plan
Devin (Cognition)	Cognition's cloud	Slack (also Linear and Jira tickets)	Devin plan
Community bots such as claude-code-slack-bot	Your machine	Slack	Claude subscription or API key

The cloud products share a working style: you delegate from a thread, the work runs in a vendor-hosted sandbox, and progress updates and a pull request come back — Claude Tag additionally stays in the conversation as a shared teammate the whole channel can talk to. If your repositories live on GitHub and you want nothing to host, they are a good choice; Anthropic's own integration in particular runs the same Claude Code this bot does.

claude-threads makes the opposite choice: the whole session stays in the thread and on your hardware. Output streams live, permission prompts land as emoji reactions, invited teammates type into the same session, and Claude works against a local checkout with whatever MCP servers and plugins you already configured. That fit matters when chat is self-hosted Mattermost, when code cannot leave the building, or when you want a session in chat to behave exactly like the one at your desk. The trade-off: you run the bot yourself, on a machine that has the repository.

A few more things set it apart. The full Claude Code permission model lives in the thread: every tool use can prompt for 👍/✅/👎 approval, with three modes switchable mid-session. Sessions are multiplayer: !invite teammates while Claude works, messages from uninvited users are gated behind approval, and commits credit everyone involved as co-author. An optional account pool routes each new session to the Claude subscription with the most headroom and cools down rate-limited ones. And nothing assumes GitHub — the session works against any local checkout, whatever its host.

This table is current as of August 2026. All of these products move quickly — if it has gone stale, open an issue.

Documentation

Setup Guide - Creating the bot account on Mattermost or Slack, step by step
Configuration Reference - Every config.yaml option, environment variables, CLI flags
MCP Tools Reference - The nine tools Claude gets in chat, with their guardrails
Security Model - Authorization matrix and vulnerability reporting
Changelog - Detailed release history

Updates

npm install -g claude-threads

The bot checks npm for new versions on its own and offers the update in chat.

Support the Project

claude-threads is free and open source, and will stay that way. It is developed and maintained by Axolotl Systems. If the bot is useful to you, consider sponsoring on GitHub — even a small amount helps keep development going.

Using claude-threads at work? If your team relies on this bot day-to-day, ask whether your organization can sponsor it. Many organizations (especially in the public sector) have policies that encourage supporting the open source they depend on, and a single organizational sponsorship goes a long way. Need an invoice or a different payment route? Open an issue or reach out.

License

Apache-2.0

claude-threads is an Axolotl Systems project.