Creating a Chat Instance

The Chat class is the main entry point for your bot. It coordinates adapters, routes events to your handlers, and manages thread state.

Basic setup

lib/bot.ts

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.");
});

This example uses Redis. Chat SDK also supports PostgreSQL and ioredis as production state adapters. See State Adapters for all options.

Each adapter factory auto-detects credentials from environment variables (SLACK_BOT_TOKEN, SLACK_SIGNING_SECRET, REDIS_URL, etc.), so you can get started with zero config. Pass explicit values to override.

Multiple adapters

lib/bot.ts

import { Chat } from "chat";
import { createSlackAdapter } from "@chat-adapter/slack";
import { createTeamsAdapter } from "@chat-adapter/teams";
import { createDiscordAdapter } from "@chat-adapter/discord";
import { createRedisState } from "@chat-adapter/state-redis";

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

Your event handlers work identically across all registered adapters — the SDK normalizes messages, threads, and reactions into a consistent format.

Configuration options

Option	Type	Default	Description
`userName`	`string`	required	Default bot username across all adapters
`adapters`	`Record<string, Adapter>`	required	Map of adapter name to adapter instance
`state`	`StateAdapter`	required	State adapter for subscriptions and locking
`logger`	`Logger \| LogLevel`	`"info"`	Logger instance or log level (`"debug"`, `"info"`, `"warn"`, `"error"`, `"silent"`)
`dedupeTtlMs`	`number`	`300000`	TTL in ms for message deduplication (5 minutes)
`streamingUpdateIntervalMs`	`number`	`500`	Update interval in ms for post+edit streaming
`fallbackStreamingPlaceholderText`	`string \| null`	`"..."`	Placeholder text while streaming starts. Set to `null` to skip
`onLockConflict`	`'drop' \| 'force' \| (threadId, message) => 'drop' \| 'force'`	`"drop"`	Behavior when a thread lock is already held. `'force'` releases the existing lock and re-acquires it, enabling interrupt/steerability for long-running handlers

Accessing adapters

Use getAdapter to access platform-specific APIs when you need functionality beyond the unified interface:

lib/bot.ts

import type { SlackAdapter } from "@chat-adapter/slack";

const slack = bot.getAdapter("slack") as SlackAdapter;
await slack.setSuggestedPrompts(channelId, threadTs, [
  { title: "Get started", message: "What can you help me with?" },
]);

Webhook routing

The webhooks property provides type-safe handlers for each registered adapter. Wire these up to your HTTP framework's routes:

app/api/webhooks/slack/route.ts

import { bot } from "@/lib/bot";

export const POST = bot.webhooks.slack;

app/api/webhooks/teams/route.ts

import { bot } from "@/lib/bot";

export const POST = bot.webhooks.teams;

Lifecycle

The Chat instance initializes lazily on the first webhook. You can also initialize manually:

lib/bot.ts

await bot.initialize();

For graceful shutdown (e.g. in serverless teardown), call shutdown:

lib/bot.ts

await bot.shutdown();

Singleton pattern

lib/bot.ts

const bot = new Chat({ /* ...config */ }).registerSingleton();
export default bot;

lib/utils.ts

import { Chat } from "chat";

const bot = Chat.getSingleton();

Direct messaging

Open a DM thread with a user by passing their platform user ID or an Author object:

lib/bot.ts

const dm = await bot.openDM("slack:U123ABC");
await dm.post("Hey! Just wanted to follow up on your request.");

Channel access

Get a channel directly by its ID:

lib/bot.ts

const channel = bot.channel("slack:C123ABC");
await channel.post("Announcement: deploy complete!");

Creating a Chat Instance

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