An interactive AI-powered Slack bot that creates collaborative children's stories with your team. Users can start a story with a slash command, and the bot will generate an introduction based on random themes.

Team members can then contribute to the story in a thread, with the AI helping to guide the narrative to completion and generating a beautiful storyboard image at the end.

• Node.js 18+
• pnpm (recommended) or npm
• A Slack workspace where you can install apps
• Vercel account for deployment

git clone https://github.com/vercel/storytime-slackbot.git
cd storytime-slackbot
pnpm install

1. Go to api.slack.com/apps and create a new app

2. Choose "From scratch" and select your workspace

3. In OAuth & Permissions, add these Bot Token Scopes:

   • chat:write
   • files:write
   • reactions:write
   • channels:history
   • groups:history
   • im:history
   • mpim:history

4. In Event Subscriptions:

   • Enable events
   • Set Request URL to: https://your-domain.vercel.app/api/slack/webhook
   • Subscribe to message.channels workspace event

5. In Slash Commands, create a new command:

   • Command: /storytime
   • Request URL: https://your-domain.vercel.app/api/slack/command
   • Description: "Start a collaborative story"

6. Install the app to your workspace and copy the Bot User OAuth Token

1. Navigate to the Vercel Dashboard and go to the AI Gateway tab
2. Click "API keys" in the left sidebar
3. Click "Create key" to generate a new API key
4. Save the API key for the next step

For more details, see the AI Gateway Authentication documentation.

Create a .env.local file:

SLACK_BOT_TOKEN=xoxb-your-bot-token-here
AI_GATEWAY_API_KEY=your_ai_gateway_api_key

pnpm dev

The app will be available at http://localhost:3000.

For local development with Slack webhooks, use a tool like ngrok to expose your local server:

ngrok http 3000

Then update your Slack app's webhook URLs to use the ngrok URL.

After deployment, update your Slack app configuration:

• Event Subscriptions Request URL: https://your-app.vercel.app/api/slack/webhook
• Slash Command Request URL: https://your-app.vercel.app/api/slack/command

1. First, invite the bot to your channel: Type @Storytime Bot (or whatever you named your app) in the channel and Slack will give you the option to invite it
2. In any Slack channel where the bot is present, type /storytime
3. The bot will generate a story introduction with random themes
4. Reply in the thread to add your part of the story
5. The bot will respond with encouragement and continue the narrative
6. After 2-3 iterations, the bot will conclude the story
7. A beautiful storyboard image will be generated and shared

Note: The bot must be invited to a channel before the /storytime slash command will work in that channel.

The /storytime command supports several optional flags:

The --model and --image-model flags accept AI Gateway model specifiers (e.g., anthropic/claude-sonnet-4, openai/gpt-4.1-mini, google/gemini-2.5-flash).

Examples:

/storytime
/storytime -t Pirates
/storytime -t Pirates -t Space
/storytime -t Magic -t Dragons -t Friendship
/storytime -t Adventure -m anthropic/claude-sonnet-4
/storytime -t Fantasy -s "Dr. Seuss"
/storytime -s "coloring book"
/storytime -p 8
/storytime -t Pirates -s watercolor -p 6

The included local.ts script allows you to test the core story generation logic locally without using Slack or Vercel Workflows.

# Default (2 random themes)
pnpm tsx local.ts

# With custom themes
pnpm tsx local.ts -t Pirates -t Space

# With custom model
pnpm tsx local.ts -t Magic -m anthropic/claude-sonnet-4

The local script accepts the same --theme, --model, --image-model, --image-style, and --panels flags as the Slack command.

• Stateful Slack Bots with Vercel Workflow Guide