Slack makes it easier to install agents built with third-party tools
The New Stack Frederic Lardinois
Slack now lets people add agents made in outside tools without custom integration work. That makes setup much simpler, while the agent still lives outside Slack.
Based on reporting by The New Stack, Frederic Lardinois — read the original for the full story.
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Slack rolled out Add to Slack on Thursday, a new way to bring agents built in third-party tools into Slack workspaces. The pitch is simple: start the install in the partner tool, let that tool handle OAuth, app setup, and permission scoping, and skip the old custom-integration slog.
The launch partners are a broad mix: Hyperagent, LangChain, Lovable, n8n, NanoClaw, OpenAI, Runlayer, Skydive, Superhuman, and Vercel. Some are point-and-click builders, others are developer frameworks. But the common thread is the same installation path, which is the point Slack seems to be betting on.
Slack says these installed agents stay inside the workspace’s existing guardrails. App approval rules still apply. OAuth scopes and channel membership decide what each app can see. Once installed, the apps also show up in Slack’s App browser. The runtime itself does not move into Slack; it stays with the provider or, in some cases like NanoClaw, on the user’s machine or cloud account.
NanoClaw shows the model clearly. Before, connecting it meant creating a custom Slack app and then wrestling with configuration, scopes, and authentication. Now, NanoClaw’s Marketplace app acts as the manager app and can create a separate managed Slack app for each agent.
In The New Stack’s demo, NanoClaw creator Gavriel Cohen asked an agent to build a team modeled on characters from The Office. The bots showed up under different names, could be tagged natively, and were even gathered into a room with a shared Canvas. NanoClaw also creates a separate Slack WebSocket connection for each agent, with its host routing messages to the right one.
Add to Slack is not the same thing as Slack Code, which Slack also launched Thursday. Slack Code sets up temporary project channels for supported coding agents to show plans, diffs, pull request details, and live previews before the channel is archived. Add to Slack installs the app first; Slack Code organizes the work after that.
My take — AI-written commentary, not fact-checked reporting
Slack is doing the sensible enterprise thing here: make the path boring, keep the controls, and let other people run the actual agent. That’s a lot less glamorous than the usual AI theater, which is exactly why it may work. Open tools and closed workspaces can coexist, but only if the plumbing is this dull and this strict.
Read more about this at: The New Stack
