Slack MCP Server

tl;dr: Anthropic’s modelcontextprotocol/servers Slack server was archived on 2025-05-29. Zencoder took over maintenance at zencoderai/slack-mcp-server and re-licensed the new code under Apache-2.0 (the original Anthropic code remains MIT in servers-archived). It’s a stdio or streamable-HTTP server with 8 Slack tools and ~3,000 weekly npm downloads.

Status of the original

The original code lives at modelcontextprotocol/servers-archived/src/slack and is read-only. The README at the bottom of the archived repo now says “Now maintained by Zencoder”. Do not install @modelcontextprotocol/server-slack — npm still ships the last published version but it has no upstream maintenance.

Install

Docker (recommended)

docker pull zencoderai/slack-mcp:latest

npm / global

npm install -g @zencoderai/slack-mcp-server

Claude Desktop config (stdio)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "slack": {
      "command": "docker",
      "args": ["run", "--rm", "-i",
        "-e", "SLACK_BOT_TOKEN",
        "-e", "SLACK_TEAM_ID",
        "-e", "SLACK_CHANNEL_IDS",
        "zencoderai/slack-mcp:latest"],
      "env": {
        "SLACK_BOT_TOKEN": "xoxb-your-bot-token",
        "SLACK_TEAM_ID": "T01234567",
        "SLACK_CHANNEL_IDS": "C01234567,C76543210"
      }
    }
  }
}

For a one-liner without Docker: "command": "slack-mcp" after the global install. The server also runs over streamable HTTP (--transport http --port 3000) with an optional bearer token.

Slack app setup

1. Create an app at api.slack.com/apps → “From scratch”.
2. Add bot token scopes: channels:history, channels:read, chat:write, reactions:write, users:read, users.profile:read.
3. Install the app to your workspace, copy the xoxb-… Bot User OAuth Token.
4. Find your Team ID (starts with T) via Slack’s help article.
5. (Optional) SLACK_CHANNEL_IDS to scope channel access; otherwise the bot lists every public channel it can see.

Tools (8)

• slack_list_channels — public or pre-defined channels, paginated
• slack_post_message — post to a channel
• slack_reply_to_thread — reply in a thread
• slack_add_reaction — emoji on a message
• slack_get_channel_history — recent messages in a channel
• slack_get_thread_replies — all replies in a thread
• slack_get_users / slack_get_user_profile — workspace users

Gotchas

• Bot must be invited to a private channel before it can read or post there (/invite @your-bot-name).
• The MCP server’s MCP SDK was bumped from v1.0.1 to v1.13.2 in the rewrite. If you were on the Anthropic original, tool names are unchanged.
• Streamable HTTP --unsafe-disable-auth exists for isolated dev networks; do not enable it on a multi-tenant host.

Related

• Notion MCP — workspace docs
• Jira MCP — issues
• MCP Servers Explained