Channel Automation Plugin for Mattermost

A Mattermost plugin that lets system admins build automated workflows triggered by channel events. Define flows that react to messages, post responses, and optionally call AI agents — all configured through a built-in management UI.

Features

• Flow-based automation — Create named flows with a trigger and a sequence of actions that execute in order.
• Go template engine — Action fields support text/template syntax with access to trigger context (post, channel, user) and outputs from previous actions.
• Persistent work queue — Flow executions are durably queued in the KV store with bounded concurrency and automatic crash recovery.
• Management UI — A dedicated webapp section for listing, creating, editing, enabling/disabling, and deleting flows.

Triggers

• Message Posted — Fire a flow when a new message appears in a specific channel. Bot posts, system messages, and webhook posts are automatically excluded.
• Schedule — Fire a flow on a recurring interval (e.g. every 30 minutes, every 24 hours).
• Membership Changed — Fire a flow when a user joins or leaves a specific channel.
• Channel Created — Fire a flow when a new public channel is created anywhere on the server.

Actions

• Send Message — Post a message as the plugin bot, with optional threading support.
• AI Prompt — Send a rendered prompt to an AI agent provided by the Mattermost AI Plugin and capture the response.

Getting Started

Installation

1. Download the latest release from the Releases page.
2. Upload the .tar.gz file through System Console > Plugins > Plugin Management.
3. Enable the plugin.

Creating a Flow

1. Open the Channel Automation section from the product menu.
2. Click Create Flow.
3. Give the flow a name, select a trigger type and channel, then add one or more actions.
4. Save and enable the flow.

Example: Echo Bot

A simple flow that replies in-thread whenever someone posts in a channel:

Field	Value
Trigger	message_posted on channel town-square
Action 1	send_message
Channel ID	{{.Trigger.Channel.Id}}
Reply To Post ID	{{.Trigger.Post.Id}}
Body	Echo: {{.Trigger.Post.Message}}

Example: AI Triage

A flow that asks an AI agent to classify incoming messages and posts the result:

Field	Value
Trigger	message_posted on a support channel
Action 1 (classify)	ai_prompt — Agent: your-agent, Prompt: Classify this message: {{.Trigger.Post.Message}}
Action 2	send_message — Body: Classification: {{(index .Steps "classify").Message}}

Trigger Types

Type	Description
message_posted	Fires when a user posts a message in the configured channel. Bot posts, system messages, and webhook posts are ignored.
schedule	Fires on a recurring interval. Minimum interval is 1 hour.
membership_changed	Fires when a user joins or leaves the configured channel. Bot users are excluded.
channel_created	Fires when a new public channel is created. No channel configuration needed.

Action Types

Type	Description
send_message	Posts a message as the plugin bot. Supports channel_id, reply_to_post_id, as_bot_id, and body — all templated.
ai_prompt	Sends a rendered prompt to an AI agent via the Mattermost AI Plugin. Requires provider_type and provider_id in the action config.

Template Context

All action fields that support templates receive a FlowContext with:

Variable	Description
{{.Trigger.Post.Id}}	ID of the triggering post
{{.Trigger.Post.Message}}	Message text
{{.Trigger.Post.ChannelId}}	Channel where the post was created
{{.Trigger.Post.ThreadId}}	Thread/root post ID
{{.Trigger.Channel.Id}}	Channel ID
{{.Trigger.Channel.Name}}	Channel name
{{.Trigger.Channel.DisplayName}}	Channel display name
{{.Trigger.User.Id}}	User ID of the post author
{{.Trigger.User.Username}}	Username
{{.Trigger.User.FirstName}}	First name
{{.Trigger.User.LastName}}	Last name
{{.CreatedBy}}	User ID of the flow creator
{{(index .Steps "<action_id>").Message}}	Output message from a previous action
{{(index .Steps "<action_id>").PostID}}	Post ID created by a previous send_message action
{{(index .Steps "<action_id>").Truncated}}	Whether the output message was truncated

Sensitive user fields (email, password, auth data) are stripped from the template context. Nickname is not available.

Configuration

Setting	Default	Description
Max Concurrent Flows	4	Maximum flow executions running concurrently per plugin instance. Requires a plugin restart to take effect.
Max Flows Per Channel	0	Maximum number of flows that can target a single channel. Set to 0 for unlimited.

API

The plugin exposes a REST API under /plugins/com.mattermost.channel-automation/api/v1. System admins are always allowed. Otherwise the user must be a channel admin on every channel referenced by the flow.

Method	Path	Description
GET	/flows	List all flows
POST	/flows	Create a new flow
GET	/flows/{id}	Get a flow by ID
PUT	/flows/{id}	Update a flow
DELETE	/flows/{id}	Delete a flow
GET	/flows/{flow_id}/executions	List executions for a flow
GET	/executions/{id}	Get a single execution record
GET	/executions	List recent executions (admin only)

See docs/api.md for the full API reference with request/response schemas.

Development

Prerequisites

• Go
• Node.js (see .nvmrc)
• Make

Building

make all        # lint + test + build
make dist       # build plugin bundle only
make check-style # run all linters
make test       # run all tests

Deploying locally

Enable plugin uploads and optionally local mode, then:

make deploy

Or with credentials:

export MM_SERVICESETTINGS_SITEURL=http://localhost:8065
export MM_ADMIN_TOKEN=<your-token>
make deploy

To watch for webapp changes and auto-deploy:

export MM_SERVICESETTINGS_SITEURL=http://localhost:8065
export MM_ADMIN_TOKEN=<your-token>
make watch

Releasing

Versions are determined at compile time from git tags. To cut a release:

make patch       # patch release (e.g. 1.0.1)
make minor       # minor release (e.g. 1.1.0)
make major       # major release (e.g. 2.0.0)

Append -rc for release candidates (make patch-rc, make minor-rc, make major-rc).