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description Install your own Switchboard, get an answer in your terminal, then put it in a Slack channel. Ten minutes, one process.

Get started

Note

Already using an existing deployment? Follow Use an existing deployment. You do not need Node, a model key, or a server to use the Switchboard your team runs.

This tutorial is for setting up your own Switchboard.

Switchboard is an open-source agent gateway. You say what you want, in Slack or from a terminal, and it picks the agent: one answers the question, one reviews the pull request, one ships the fix, on the model you choose and with its tools running where you decide. You install it; you do not fork it.

In ten minutes it will be answering you in your terminal and in a Slack channel, from one process on your machine. Production comes after, as a how-to.

You need: Node 24 and an Anthropic API key. Part 2 adds a Slack workspace where you may create an app.

What you are installing
One process The bot. It talks to your terminal, and to Slack over Socket Mode: no public URL, no Docker, no hosted service in between.
Three agents general answers and reads links. review reviews a pull request. ship makes a change, opens the PR and has it reviewed; a person merges. You never name one: the bot reads your message, picks the agent, and its status card says which and why.
Your keys, at home Keys live in ~/.switchboard/.env, readable only by you. Every later command finds them from any directory.

Part 1: an answer in your terminal

1. Install

npx @coreplane/switchboard init --organization <your-github-org> --anthropic-key <sk-ant-…>
wrote to /Users/you/.switchboard:
  .env                  (mode 600)
  config/config.yaml
providers: anthropic
capabilities: execution local · github off · memory off · run history off · …
next:
  npx @coreplane/switchboard ask "what can you do?"
  npx @coreplane/switchboard start

--organization is the GitHub organization the agents will work in once you connect GitHub; it is a name in config/config.yaml, editable later. Every optional capability starts off. init --help lists every flag.

2. Ask

npx @coreplane/switchboard ask "what can you do?"

Status lines appear (preparing workspace…, preparing the prompt…), then the answer. Now ask something that needs a tool:

npx @coreplane/switchboard ask "read https://github.com/coreplanelabs/switchboard and say what it does in two sentences"

The agent fetched the page and answered. That was the whole pipeline, the same one Slack will use.

Part 2: an answer in Slack

3. Create the Slack app

  1. At api.slack.com/apps: Create New App → From a manifest → paste slack-app-manifest.yaml.
  2. Basic Information → App-Level Tokens → generate one with connections:write. It starts with xapp-.
  3. Install App → Install to Workspace. The Bot User OAuth Token starts with xoxb-.

4. Add the tokens

npx @coreplane/switchboard init --force --organization <your-github-org> --anthropic-key <sk-ant-…> --slack-app-token <xapp-…> --slack-bot-token <xoxb-…>

--force rewrites the same two files with the tokens added. Nothing else changes.

5. Start the bot

npx @coreplane/switchboard start
switchboard running (providers: anthropic; default agent: general)

Leave it running. This is the same process production runs in a container.

6. Mention it

The manifest names the bot @switchboard. If you renamed it in Slack, use its current handle.

In Slack, /invite @switchboard into a channel, then:

@switchboard what can you do?

You should see a 👀 reaction (the receipt), a status card that updates in place, and the answer in a thread. The card's first line names the agent it picked and why. Reply in the thread without the mention: it answers again, and the thread keeps its context. No 👀 means the bot is not in the channel.

What you have

One process, answering on two channels and picking the agent for each message, with your keys in a file only you can read. Nothing runs anywhere else yet. To turn the picking off, routing: { auto: false } in config/config.yaml (Turn features on and off); every plain message then runs general.

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