How to use Slack with GitHub Copilot

1. Create an Arcade account

   Sign up and open the dashboard. The free tier is enough to follow this through.

2. Create an MCP Gateway and select your Slack tools

   In the dashboard, create a gateway and pick the Slack tools you want to expose. The gateway is what your client connects to, and it is where tool access is decided.

3. Copy your gateway URL

   Every client below needs it.

   Copy

   https://api.arcade.dev/mcp/<YOUR-GATEWAY-SLUG>

Heads up

JetBrains IDEs do not support remote MCP servers with Dynamic Client Registration — configure the gateway as “Arcade Headers” in the dashboard first. Setup also differs on Visual Studio, Eclipse and Xcode; check the docs for yours.

1. In VS Code

   Copilot picks up MCP servers configured in VS Code automatically, so follow the VS Code steps and you are done.

2. In JetBrains IDEs

   Copilot icon → Open Chat → Agent mode → tools icon → “+ Add More Tools…”, which opens mcp.json.

3. Add the gateway with Arcade Headers

   Copy

   {
     "servers": {
       "mcp-arcade": {
         "url": "https://api.arcade.dev/mcp/<YOUR-GATEWAY-SLUG>",
         "requestInit": {
           "headers": {
             "Authorization": "Bearer {arcade_api_key}",
             "Arcade-User-ID": "{arcade_user_id}"
           }
         }
       }
     }
   }

4. Try it out

   Open Copilot Chat in Agent mode and ask it to use one of your Slack tools. The first time it calls a Slack tool, Arcade replies with an authorization link. Open it, sign in to Slack and approve access, then ask again. You do this once per account.

Full GitHub Copilot guide in the docs steps verified 2026-08-13