How to use Claude Code from Slack

1. How it works

When you mention @Ara in Slack or send it a DM, Ara answers with its own AI by default. Switch who answers to Claude Code, and the same request is handled by the Claude Code installed on a PC, on that PC. The result comes back to Slack.

This guide covers two ways: the Claude Code on your own PC, used only for you, and a Claude Code a teammate lends along with their PC, which the whole workspace shares. Either way, Claude Code runs on the plan of the person signed in to it.

2. What you need

• Ara in your Slack. Press Add to Slack, then type /invite @Ara in the channel where it should work. It never joins a channel on its own.
• A PC with the Ara desktop app installed. The app is made for Mac, Windows and Linux.
• Claude Code installed and signed in on that PC. Claude Code needs a paid plan from Anthropic, or an API key (an access key you pay for by use).

• How to add Ara to Slack
• Download the Ara desktop app

3. On your own: your Claude Code answers your requests

1. Open the Ara app on your PC and sign in with the Ara account that uses the same email as your Slack profile. That is how Ara knows a Slack message is yours.
2. If Claude Code is installed but not signed in, open a terminal on that PC, run claude, then /login. It shows up in Ara by itself within a couple of minutes.
3. In Ara, open Settings, then You, then Computer, and under Who answers you pick your own Claude Code. This choice is yours alone: nothing changes for your teammates.
4. Mention @Ara in Slack as usual. The Claude Code on your PC answers on your own plan, and the result is posted in Slack.

Choosing it also makes that PC where Ara works for you, and Claude Code works with Ara's skills, memory and data beside it.

The PC has to be on, with the Ara app open. If it is off or the app is closed, Ara answers with its own AI instead and tells you it could not reach your Claude Code.

4. As a team: everyone uses the Claude Code on a shared PC

When one teammate lends their PC and its Claude Code to the workspace, everyone else can hand that Claude Code a job by mentioning @Ara in Slack, without installing Claude Code themselves.

1. The PC's owner installs the Ara app on it, signs in, and shares the PC from Settings, then You, then Computer, under Share with workspace. On the PC, the owner decides whether the team's work gets one folder of its own there or the whole PC.
2. On the same screen, the owner turns on lending their Claude Code to the workspace and signs it in for the workspace. The PC has to be on for this.
3. An admin opens Workspace, then Computer, chooses that PC as where the workspace works, and under Who answers here presses Answer with this on that Claude Code.
4. Teammates mention @Ara in Slack as usual. Under Settings, You, Computer, each of them can choose whether the workspace's Claude Code or Ara answers their messages.

A lent Claude Code answers on its owner's account and plan. Before turning lending on, check that the plan allows use by other people.

What a teammate asks runs on that PC, and the memory and connected apps used to answer it pass through that PC too. When your own Ara takes the message, that includes your memory and the apps you connected, so its owner could read it there. For anything that should be kept from the owner, pick Ara or your own Claude Code.

A Mac cannot lend its Claude Code yet. A lent one always runs inside the PC's sandbox, so it has to be installed on Linux, or in the Linux inside Windows (WSL), not on Windows itself.

If the PC is off or no longer lends it, Ara answers with its own AI until it can be used again, and those answers use credits. If the owner stops sharing the PC, work there stops right away.

• How Ara handles company data

5. What stays with Ara

Claude Code answers the messages a person sends in person. Standing jobs that run on a schedule stay with Ara.

Claude Code can be wrong too, so check the result before you use it.

6. What it costs

A job Claude Code answers has no task cost in Ara; only the data lookups it makes count (Ara pulling information from a paid outside data source). What Claude Code itself costs follows the Anthropic plan of the person signed in to it.

A job Ara answers itself uses a credit, including one it answered because the PC was off. Every Ara account starts on the Free plan: free credits and no card, so nothing can charge on its own.