Connect Slack to Microsoft Copilot via MCP

💡 No install? Use cloud.anythingmcp.com directly. Sign in, click Connectors → Slack, paste your credentials, mint an MCP API key — done. No Docker, no git clone, no local server.

Slack + Microsoft Copilot

Let your AI work in Slack: find channels and people, read channel history and threads, catch up on what was said, post messages and thread replies, and react with emoji. One workspace, through a Slack app you install yourself.

Prerequisites

See the full setup instructions baked into the connector (visible in the in-app store when you select the connector). The required environment variables for this connector are:

SLACK_TOKEN

Step 1 — Get credentials

Setting up takes about 5 minutes. You create a Slack app in your own workspace and give the connector its token.

1. Open api.slack.com/apps → Create New App → From a manifest and pick the workspace.
2. Paste the app manifest shown in the connector's instructions (in AnythingMCP, open the Slack connector) and click Create. It asks for the bot scopes channels:read, channels:history, channels:join, groups:read, groups:history, im:read, im:history, mpim:read, mpim:history, chat:write, reactions:write and users:read.
3. Click Install App → Install to Workspace and allow. If only admins may install apps in your workspace, Slack sends them an approval request instead.
4. Under OAuth & Permissions, copy the Bot User OAuth Token (it starts with xoxb-) into SLACK_TOKEN and install the connector.
5. Keep token rotation off, as in the manifest: with rotation on, the token expires every 12 hours and a pasted token stops working.

Bot token or user token: a bot token acts as the app. Messages are posted by "AnythingMCP", and it reads a channel's history only once the app is a member: use slack_join_channel for public channels, or /invite @AnythingMCP in the channel, which is the only way for private channels and group DMs. A user token (xoxp-) acts as the person who installed the app, sees every conversation that person sees and posts in their name; add the same scopes plus search:read as user scopes, reinstall and paste the User OAuth Token. Only a user token can search, so slack_search_messages is installed switched off: turn it on when you use one. Add users:read.email if the AI should see people's email addresses.

Ids: every call takes ids, not names. Channel ids start with C (public), G (some private) or D (direct messages), user ids with U or W; the AI looks them up with slack_list_conversations and slack_list_users. A message is identified by its channel and its ts, and a thread reply carries the parent's ts as thread_ts.

Step 2 — Install the adapter

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/HelpCode-ai/anythingmcp/main/docker-compose.quickstart.yml -o docker-compose.yml
printf 'JWT_SECRET=%s\nENCRYPTION_KEY=%s\n' "$(openssl rand -hex 32)" "$(openssl rand -hex 32)" > .env
docker compose up -d

Step 3 — Add the connector in Microsoft Copilot

Your server URL: in AnythingMCP, open MCP Servers → the server this connector is on, and copy its URL (https://cloud.anythingmcp.com/mcp/…). Use it wherever this guide shows YOUR_SERVER_ID.

Microsoft Copilot uses MCP servers through agents built in Copilot Studio: you add AnythingMCP to an agent as a tool, then publish the agent to Microsoft 365 Copilot and Teams. Copilot Studio connects from Microsoft's cloud over Streamable HTTP, which AnythingMCP supports.

1. In Copilot Studio, open your agent (or create one), go to Tools and choose Add a tool → New tool → Model Context Protocol.
2. Enter a Server name (for example AnythingMCP), a Server description that says what the connector does, and the Server URL https://cloud.anythingmcp.com/mcp/YOUR_SERVER_ID. Copilot Studio uses the description to decide when to call the server.
3. Under authentication, choose API key, set Type to Header and the header name to X-API-Key, then select Create.
4. In Add tool, choose Create a new connection, paste an MCP API key from AnythingMCP (MCP Servers → your server → API keys) and select Add to agent.
5. Try it in the agent's Test pane: ask for something that needs the Slack tools you imported.
6. Select Publish, then Channels → Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams, keep Make agent available in Microsoft Copilot selected and choose Add channel. See agent in Teams installs it for you; in Microsoft 365 Copilot, type @ and pick the agent.

Prefer per-user sign-in? Choose OAuth 2.0 → Dynamic discovery instead of an API key: each user then signs in to AnythingMCP the first time the agent calls it.

Self-hosting? Use your instance's public HTTPS address instead of https://cloud.anythingmcp.com. Copilot Studio connects from Microsoft's cloud, so localhost does not work.

Available tools

FAQ

Which Copilot is this for? Microsoft 365 Copilot at work, through agents built in Copilot Studio. The Microsoft Copilot app for personal accounts has no option to add your own MCP server.

What do I need? A work account with access to Copilot Studio (a license or a trial) to build the agent. People who use it in Microsoft 365 Copilot or Teams need access to the agent: share it with them, or ask an admin to publish it to the organization. If your organization applies data policies to Power Platform connectors, they cover MCP servers too.

The agent doesn't call the tools. Check that the header name is exactly X-API-Key and that the key belongs to the same MCP server as the URL, and make the server description specific: Copilot Studio uses it to decide when to call the server. Publish the agent again after each change; in an open chat, type "start over" to get the new version.

Next steps

• Connector landing page
• Connect to Claude
• Connect to ChatGPT