Start work from messages and reactions

ChannelGate starts an agent turn when a message passes both the conversation’s trigger rules and the author’s access checks. Addressing the bot alone does not grant access.

Send a request

Surface	How to start
Direct message to the bot	Send a message without a mention.
Public or private Slack channel	Invite the bot and mention it in the request.
Group DM	Mention the bot.
Existing channel thread	Reply in the thread and mention the bot.

@ChannelGate Review the proposed change and list any migration risks.

A new top-level request starts a thread. Replies continue that thread’s session; project files remain shared across the conversation. The bot ignores its own messages and deduplicates repeated Slack deliveries.

If mentioning a bot that is not yet in a channel leads Slack to offer an invitation, accept it. On joining, ChannelGate checks a bounded recent window for the pending mention rather than requiring the request to be sent again.

Engage with a reaction

React with the configured engagement emoji, normally 🤖, to treat a message as a request. The person adding the reaction becomes the author: their authorization and personal connections apply.

Reaction engagement works in DMs, on a new top-level message, and in threads already owned by this gateway. A thread with an existing session, a gateway-authored reminder root, or a prior gateway command reply can qualify. Reaction engagement does not hijack another bot’s unrelated thread; explicitly mention ChannelGate there instead.

Stop work

Use /stop in the appropriate thread or a supported stop reaction, such as 🛑 or ❌, on its message. Stop controls still check authorization. Cancelling a turn is different from marking a follow-up done with ✅.

Related: conversations, steer, queue, and stop, and chat commands. Teams and Google Chat are Beta and have their own supported trigger behavior; see platforms.