Factory opens its coding agent beta inside Slack Code

Factory has opened a limited beta of its coding agent for Slack Code, Slack’s workspace for collaborative AI-assisted development. A user can post a task, mention Factory, and follow the agent’s plan, code changes, and output while teammates comment and approve the work in the same channel.

Salesforce introduced Slack Code earlier this year to embed coding agents in dedicated Slack channels. Factory joins partners including Anthropic’s Claude, Cognition’s Devin, GitHub Copilot, and Vercel. OpenAI’s ChatGPT is expected to follow.

One task gets one channel

Mentioning a coding agent in an existing conversation creates a temporary channel scoped to that task. Separate tabs show the conversation, the agent’s plan, code diffs that identify line-by-line changes, and a live preview of the output. Slack archives the channel when the task ends, preserving the discussion and approvals as an audit record.

Factory’s existing Droids, its software-development agents, can now operate within that structure. A product manager or support engineer could report a bug and invoke Factory, then bring in an engineer when the agent needs guidance or its proposed fix is ready for review.

Agent work moves into review

Many coding-agent sessions remain private until the developer opens a pull request, or PR, for review. Code channels expose the request, plan, intermediate discussion, diff, and preview as the work progresses. Teammates can correct assumptions earlier and retain a record of how the result was produced.

• Permission boundaries: Code channels use Slack’s existing security and permissions model. Agents can reach conversations and workspace data according to the controls configured by the organization.
• Approval gates: A person must approve changes before they ship. Production pushes still require human sign-off in the channel.
• Broader task intake: Product, support, and other teams can open scoped engineering tasks. Developers can join when technical decisions or code review require their attention.

Slack says more than 70% of its internal code channels open and close within one day, often progressing from an idea to a merged PR. The internal metric covers turnaround time; code quality, rework, and review burden remain unmeasured. Slack’s intended gain comes from reducing handoffs among chat, ticket trackers, editors, and PR reviews.

Slack brings the installed base

Coding-agent vendors increasingly compete on how much work their tools can complete unattended and where teams can invoke them. Slack contributes an established workplace with more than 500 AI apps and agents in its marketplace. The integration gives Factory access to teams in their existing communication workflow and removes the need to monitor another standalone agent interface.

Salesforce is positioning code channels as part of a broader shift toward shared AI workflows. Rob Seaman, Slack’s executive vice president and general manager, said the format lets teams see, shape, and build on an agent’s work inside the environment where they already coordinate projects.

Access, cost, and the IDE boundary

Factory is limiting the beta to select users and has not announced general availability. Slack Code carries no additional charge across Slack plans, according to the company. Teams must still maintain a separate subscription to each coding agent they invoke, including Factory.

Slack Code provides coordination, history, previews, and approvals around existing agents. Developers will still use an editor or integrated development environment, or IDE, for deep debugging, complex refactors, and tasks that depend on long-lived local state.

Teams already using Factory Droids with Slack can evaluate the beta through triage time, review latency, rework, and auditability. Slack Code keeps each scoped agent run in a shared channel from request through approval, preserving who requested the work, what the agent changed, and who authorized the result.