Creating Slack Bot Agent with BeeAI Framework and MCP
This tutorial guides you through creating an AI agent that can post messages to a Slack channel using the Model Context Protocol (MCP).Table of Contents
Slack agent prerequisites
- Python: Version 3.11 or higher
- Ollama: Installed with the
granite3.3:8bmodel pulled - BeeAI framework installed with
pip install beeai-framework - Project setup:
- Create project directory:
mkdir beeai-slack-agent && cd beeai-slack-agent - Set up Python virtual environment:
python -m venv venv && source venv/bin/activate - Create environment file:
echo -e "SLACK_BOT_TOKEN=\nSLACK_TEAM_ID=" >> .env - Create agent module:
mkdir my_agents && touch my_agents/slack_agent.py
- Create project directory:
Slack configuration
To configure the Slack API integration:-
Create a Slack app
- Visit https://api.slack.com/apps and click “Create New App” > “From scratch”
- Name your app (e.g.,
Bee) and select a workspace to develop your app in
-
Configure bot permissions
- Navigate to
OAuth & Permissionsin the sidebar - Under “Bot Token Scopes”, add the
chat:writescope - Click “Install to [Workspace]” and authorize the app
- Navigate to
-
Gather credentials
- Copy the “Bot User OAuth Token” and add it to your
.envfile asSLACK_BOT_TOKEN=xoxb-your-token - Get your Slack Team ID from your workspace URL
(https://app.slack.com/client/TXXXXXXX/...)- Tip: Visit
https://<your-workspace>.slack.com, after redirect, your URL will change tohttps://app.slack.com/client/TXXXXXXX/CXXXXXXX, pick the segment starting withTXXXXXXX
- Tip: Visit
- Add the Team ID to your
.envfile asSLACK_TEAM_ID=TXXXXXXX
- Copy the “Bot User OAuth Token” and add it to your
-
Create a channel
- Create a public channel named
bee-playgroundin your Slack workspace - Invite your bot to the channel by typing
/invite @Beein the channel
- Create a public channel named
Implementing the Slack agent
The framework doesn’t have any specialized tools for using Slack API. However, it supports tools exposed via Model Context Protocol (MCP) and performs automatic tool discovery. We will use that to give our agent the capability to post Slack messages. Now, copy and paste the following code intoslack_agent.py module. Then, follow along with the comments for an explanation.
Python
Running the Slack agent
Execute your agent with:- Analyze the task
- Determine it needs to check the weather in Boston
- Use the OpenMeteo tool to get the current temperature
- Use the
slack_post_messagetool to post to the #bee-playground Slack channel