Chat SDK

A unified TypeScript SDK for building chat bots across Slack, Microsoft Teams, Google Chat, Discord, Telegram, GitHub, Linear, and WhatsApp. Write your bot logic once, deploy everywhere.

Installation

bash
npm install chat

Install adapters for your platforms:

bash
npm install @chat-adapter/slack @chat-adapter/teams @chat-adapter/gchat @chat-adapter/discord @chat-adapter/telegram

CLI

Scaffold a minimal Next.js bot app with create-chat-sdk:

bash
npx create-chat-sdk@latest my-bot

The CLI generates your Chat configuration, webhook route, .env.example file, dependencies, and optional Web adapter route from the adapter catalog. See the CLI docs for options and non-interactive usage.

Usage

typescript
import { Chat } from "chat";
import { createSlackAdapter } from "@chat-adapter/slack";
import { createRedisState } from "@chat-adapter/state-redis";

const bot = new Chat({
  userName: "mybot",
  adapters: {
    slack: createSlackAdapter(),
  },
  state: createRedisState(),
});

bot.onNewMention(async (thread) => {
  await thread.subscribe();
  await thread.post("Hello! I'm listening to this thread.");
});

bot.onSubscribedMessage(async (thread, message) => {
  await thread.post(`You said: ${message.text}`);
});

See the Getting Started guide for a full walkthrough.

Adapters

Browse official, vendor-official, and community adapters on chat-sdk.dev/adapters. A cross-platform feature matrix is available at chat-sdk.dev/docs/adapters.

Features

Event handlers — mentions, messages, reactions, button clicks, slash commands, modals
AI streaming — stream LLM responses with native Slack streaming, Telegram private chat draft previews, and post+edit fallback
Cards — JSX-based interactive cards (Block Kit, Adaptive Cards, Google Chat Cards)
Actions — handle button clicks and dropdown selections
Modals — form dialogs with text inputs, dropdowns, and validation
Slash commands — handle /command invocations
Emoji — type-safe, cross-platform emoji with custom emoji support
File uploads — send and receive file attachments
Direct messages — initiate DMs programmatically
Ephemeral messages — user-only visible messages with DM fallback
Overlapping messages - burst, queue, debounce, drop, or process concurrent messages on the same thread

AI Coding Agents

If you use an AI coding agent such as OpenAI Codex, Claude Code, or Cursor, install the Chat SDK skill so it knows the SDK APIs, adapter patterns, and project conventions before writing code.

bash
npx skills add vercel/chat

The skill references bundled documentation in node_modules/chat/docs, plus adapter guides and starter templates in the published package.

You can also install the Vercel Plugin for a broader agent toolkit — it includes the Chat SDK skill alongside specialist agents, agent slash commands, and more:

bash
npx plugins add vercel/vercel-plugin

The plugin is optional; the skill alone is enough to build with Chat SDK.

For agent-readable documentation, see chat-sdk.dev/llms.txt (page index) or chat-sdk.dev/llms-full.txt (full text).

Documentation

Full documentation is available at chat-sdk.dev/docs.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for development setup and the release process.

Support

For help or questions, see SUPPORT.md. To report a security vulnerability, see SECURITY.md.

License

MIT