Chat SDK

npm package: chat

Universal TypeScript SDK for building multi-platform chat bots and AI agents on Slack, Teams, Google Chat, Discord, WhatsApp, and more. Provides the Chat class, event handlers, JSX cards, emoji helpers, and type-safe message formatting.

Documentation: chat-sdk.dev/docs · Guides: vercel.com/kb/chat-sdk

Installation

npm install chat

CLI

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

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

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({
      botToken: process.env.SLACK_BOT_TOKEN!,
      signingSecret: process.env.SLACK_SIGNING_SECRET!,
    }),
  },
  state: createRedisState({ url: process.env.REDIS_URL! }),
  dedupeTtlMs: 600_000, // 10 minutes (default: 5 min)
});

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}`);
});

Tip: PostgreSQL and ioredis adapters are also available for production. See State Adapters for all options.

Configuration

| 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, locking, and dedup | | logger | Logger \| LogLevel | "info" | Logger instance or log level ("silent" to disable) | | streamingUpdateIntervalMs | number | 500 | Update interval for fallback streaming (post + edit) in ms | | dedupeTtlMs | number | 300000 | TTL for message deduplication entries in ms. Increase if webhook cold starts cause platform retries (e.g., Slack's http_timeout retry) that arrive after the default window |

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.

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:

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.

• Usage — event handlers, threads, messages, channels
• Chat API — full Chat class reference
• Cards — JSX-based interactive cards
• Streaming — AI SDK integration
• Emoji — cross-platform emoji helpers

License

MIT