Anthropic has launched Channels, a new capability for Claude Code that allows external platforms to push messages and events directly into a running session, enabling Claude to respond without requiring the user to be present at the terminal. The feature is in research preview and requires Claude Code v2.1.80 or later, along with a claude.ai account login. Author details for the documentation were not available at time of publication.
- Channels are MCP servers that push events into open Claude Code sessions in real time, with Telegram, Discord, and iMessage supported in the initial research preview.
- The feature is bidirectional: Claude can receive an event and reply back through the same channel, with the reply appearing on the originating platform rather than the terminal.
- Each channel is installed as a plugin requiring the Bun runtime and activated via the
--channelsflag at startup; afakechatlocalhost demo is included for testing without a live platform. - Team and Enterprise organizations must explicitly enable Channels before members can use the feature; console and API key authentication are not supported.
What Happened
Anthropic introduced Channels for Claude Code, described in the official documentation as “an MCP server that pushes events into your running Claude Code session, so Claude can react to things that happen while you’re not at the terminal.” The feature entered research preview alongside v2.1.80 and currently supports three platforms: Telegram, Discord, and iMessage. Unlike existing approaches that spawn a fresh cloud session or rely on polling, a channel delivers events directly into the session already open on the user’s machine.
Why It Matters
The architectural difference between Channels and polling-based integrations is that Claude operates with the full context of the current working session rather than starting cold. Channels can also be two-way: Claude reads an inbound event and replies through the same channel, functioning as a bridge between the terminal environment and the external platform.
For teams already using Claude Code to automate CI pipelines, monitoring alerts, or deployment tasks, this means routing external signals — such as a failed build notification or a Telegram message — into the same session without switching tools or spawning parallel processes.
Technical Details
Each channel is implemented as a plugin that requires the Bun runtime. Setting up the Telegram integration involves three steps: creating a bot via Telegram’s BotFather service to obtain an API token, installing the official plugin with /plugin install telegram@claude-plugins-official, and configuring the token via /telegram:configure <token>, which writes the credential to ~/.claude/channels/telegram/.env. Claude Code must then be restarted with the --channels flag to activate the channel.
Events are delivered only while the session is open; messages sent when Claude Code is not running are not queued or delivered retroactively. For always-on setups, the documentation specifies running Claude Code in a background process or persistent terminal. When Claude replies through a channel, the terminal displays the tool call and a short confirmation such as “sent” — the actual reply text appears on the external platform and is not echoed back to the terminal.
Security is handled through sender allowlists and an account-pairing mechanism. For Telegram, users send a message to their configured bot, receive a pairing code, and confirm it in Claude Code with /telegram:access pair <code>. Access can subsequently be restricted to specific senders via allowlist policies. A fakechat plugin is also included as a localhost demo, allowing developers to test the full plugin installation flow before connecting any live platform credentials.
Who’s Affected
Individual developers on a personal claude.ai account can access Channels in research preview immediately on v2.1.80 or later. Console and API key authentication modes are explicitly not supported, which excludes any workflow that authenticates outside the claude.ai login flow.
Team and Enterprise plan subscribers face an additional requirement: organization administrators must explicitly enable Channels before members can use the feature. Administrators can also restrict which channel plugins are permitted to run within their organization, limiting which external platforms Claude Code sessions may communicate with.
What’s Next
The research preview status indicates the feature has not reached general availability and may change before a stable release. Anthropic has published a separate Channels reference in the Claude Code documentation for developers who want to build custom channel plugins beyond the three supported platforms. One explicit limitation noted in the documentation is that events do not persist across session closures — there is no replay or backfill when a session resumes.
