Connecting a channel

Talk to your agent from Slack, Microsoft Teams, Discord, Telegram, WhatsApp or SMS — how each one is set up, and where the bot gets installed.

How channels work

A channel lets you reach your agent from somewhere you already are. You ask a question in Slack or send a file over Telegram, the agent does the work, and the answer arrives in the same conversation.

Two separate things have to be true before that works:

• The channel is connected to your workspace — done once, in the Monokrew app
• Your identity on that channel is linked to your Monokrew account — done by each person, for themselves

The second one matters more than it sounds. Monokrew only answers people it recognises. If a colleague messages the agent without connecting their own account first, nothing happens — no reply, no error. That is deliberate: an unrecognised sender gets silence rather than a hint that something is there.

Tip — Connecting a channel is per person, not per workspace. Installing the Slack app once covers the whole workspace, but every teammate who wants to use the agent connects their own Slack account in the Monokrew app.

Two kinds of setup

The six channels split into two groups, and the difference decides how much work setup is.

Slack, Teams and Discord put a bot inside your workspace, so someone with permission there has to approve it. Telegram, WhatsApp and SMS have no install step — you connect your account and then message Monokrew directly.

Every channel starts the same way: open the Monokrew app, go to Channels, and pick the one you want. What happens next depends on the channel.

Slack

Monokrew installs as a Slack app. One install covers the workspace; each person then links their own Slack account.

Install it

1. In the Monokrew app, open Channels and choose Slack → Connect
2. Pick the workspace you want and approve the permissions Slack shows you
3. You come back to Monokrew with Slack marked as connected

That single step installs the app and links your own account. Teammates repeat only the last part — they open Channels in their own Monokrew login and connect Slack there.

Invite it to a channel

The bot can only see channels it has been added to. In Slack, type /invite @Monokrew in the channel you want, or mention it and accept Slack's offer to add it.

Using it

• In a channel — start your message with @Monokrew
• In a direct message — just write; no mention needed

Tip — Free Slack workspaces allow ten apps in total. If your workspace is at the limit, Slack will ask you to remove one before Monokrew can be added.

Microsoft Teams

Teams is the strictest of the three, because Microsoft requires an organisation-level approval before any app can be used.

Install it

1. In the Monokrew app, open Channels and choose Microsoft Teams → Connect
2. Sign in with your work Microsoft account — a personal Microsoft account will not work
3. If you are an administrator, tick Consent on behalf of your organization. If you are not, Microsoft will show a Need admin approval screen and your administrator has to approve it once for everyone

Warning — Sign in with the account that belongs to the organisation where Monokrew will be used. If you are a guest in that organisation rather than a member, Microsoft may sign you in against your own directory instead, and the connection will be refused. Sign out of other Microsoft accounts first if you have several.

Add it to a team

Once installed, add Monokrew to the team you want: hover the team name, open ⋯ → Manage team → Apps → More apps, find Monokrew and add it.

Using it

• In a channel — type @, pick Monokrew from the list, then your question. The mention is required; Teams does not deliver messages to a bot without one
• In a chat — open Monokrew from your app list and write directly

Replying inside a thread works the same way: mention @Monokrew again in the reply, or the bot never sees it.

Discord

Discord works per server. The bot joins a server you administer, and each person links their own Discord account.

Install it

1. In the Monokrew app, open Channels and choose Discord → Connect
2. Discord asks which server to add the bot to — pick one where you have Manage Server permission
3. Approve the permissions and you are returned to Monokrew

Don't have a server? Create one first — the + at the bottom of Discord's server list, then Create My Own. It takes a few seconds and keeps the bot out of a server you share with other people.

Using it

• In a channel — mention @Monokrew and ask
• In a direct message — write to the bot directly

Telegram

No installation. Monokrew runs a single bot, and you link your Telegram account to your Monokrew login.

1. In the Monokrew app, open Channels and choose Telegram → Connect
2. Follow the link to the Monokrew bot and press Start
3. The bot confirms and you can begin asking

In a private chat you write normally. In a group, mention the bot so it knows the message is for it.

WhatsApp

Also no installation — you message Monokrew's WhatsApp number from your own.

1. In the Monokrew app, open Channels and choose WhatsApp → Connect
2. Confirm the phone number you will be messaging from
3. Send your first message to the Monokrew number shown on that screen

Photos, PDFs and documents can be attached to a message and the agent will read them.

Tip — WhatsApp only allows a business to reply freely within 24 hours of your last message. If you go quiet for longer, send a new message to reopen the conversation.

SMS

The simplest of the six, and the only one that needs no app at all.

1. In the Monokrew app, open Channels and choose SMS → Connect
2. Confirm your mobile number
3. Text the Monokrew number shown on that screen

Long answers are sent as several linked messages, which your phone joins back together. Picture messages work where your carrier supports MMS.

Talking to the agent

Two rules cover every channel:

• In a shared space — a Slack or Discord channel, a Teams channel, a Telegram group — mention the bot. Without a mention the platform never delivers your message, so nothing happens at all
• In a private conversation — a DM, a Teams chat, a WhatsApp or SMS thread — just write

You will usually get a short acknowledgement first, then the answer when the work is done. Longer jobs send an update while they run.

# in a Slack or Discord channel
@Monokrew summarise the attached spreadsheet and flag anything unusual

# in a direct message — no mention needed
how many tokens do I have left?

Sending and receiving files

You can attach a file to your message and ask about it — a spreadsheet to analyse, a document to summarise, an image to describe. Attach the file and put your question in the same message.

What the agent can read

Sending a file without a question

If you send a file on its own, with no question, the agent holds on to it and tells you so:

Got your file — Q3-sales.xlsx. Send your question in the next 10 minutes.

Ask your question within that window and the file is used. This matters most on phones, where sending a photo often sends it with no caption at all.

Only one file is held at a time. If you send a second before asking, it replaces the first and the agent says so.

Files the agent sends back

When the agent produces something — a report, a deck, a spreadsheet — most channels deliver it as a real attachment you can open directly.

Teams is the exception. Microsoft does not allow bots to attach files to a message, so Teams gets a download link instead. The link works immediately; open it when the answer arrives rather than days later.

Warning — If a file you send is too large, or the agent cannot read that type, it tells you why rather than failing silently. A reply that doesn't mention your file means the file did not arrive — check the size and try again.

Running workflows from a channel

Anything you can run in the app, you can run from a channel. Ask in plain language:

@Monokrew run the weekly sales report
@Monokrew what workflows do I have?

The agent finds the workflow, confirms what it is about to do, and reports back when it finishes. Longer workflows send progress updates as they run, so a quiet channel doesn't mean a stalled job.

Scheduled workflows behave the same way — when one finishes, its result arrives in the channel it belongs to, without you asking.

Missing skills

If a workflow needs a capability your workspace hasn't enabled, the agent says which one and stops rather than guessing. Enable it in the app, then ask again.

When the agent needs your approval

Some steps wait for a human before going ahead — publishing something, spending money, sending a message on your behalf, or anything your workspace has marked as needing review.

When that happens the agent pauses and asks, in the same conversation:

Ready to publish the September report to the team channel.
Reply "approve" to continue, or "cancel" to stop.

Three things worth knowing:

• Reply in the same place. In a shared channel, mention the bot in your reply — a bare "approve" without a mention is never delivered
• Only you can approve your own request. A colleague replying "approve" to your paused job will not release it
• Nothing happens until you answer. A paused job holds its place and waits. It does not time out into going ahead

You can also approve from the Monokrew app if you have moved on from the channel — the same request appears there, and answering in either place resolves it.

What it costs

Channel messages spend billing tokens like any other agent work — the question you ask and the reply you get. Connecting a channel itself is free, and so is a message the agent ignores.

If your balance is too low to run a request, the agent tells you in the same place you asked rather than failing quietly. See How billing tokens work for allowances and top-ups.

If nothing comes back

Silence almost always means one of four things:

• You have not connected that channel yet — connect it in the Monokrew app under Channels. Being in a workspace where a colleague installed the app is not the same as having connected your own account
• You did not mention the bot in a shared channel, so the platform never delivered the message
• The bot is not in that channel — invite it first
• You are messaging from a different account than the one you connected — a second Slack account, a work versus personal Microsoft login, a different phone number

That last one is the most common and the least obvious, because everything looks normal from your side.

Disconnecting

Open Channels in the Monokrew app and choose Disconnect on the channel you want to stop using. Your identity is unlinked immediately and the agent stops responding to you there.

That leaves the app installed for everyone else. To remove it from a workspace entirely, uninstall it on the platform's own side — Slack's app settings, the Teams admin centre, or by removing the bot from your Discord server.