Anthropic turns Claude Code into an always-on AI agent with new channels feature

Anthropic's Claude Code now supports "channels," letting messages, notifications, and webhooks flow directly into a running session. Claude can respond to events even when the user isn't at the terminal, whether that's CI results, chat messages, or monitoring alerts.

Channels run through MCP servers and support two-way communication: Claude reads an incoming message and responds through the same channel. The research preview supports Telegram and Discord, and developers can build their own custom channels. The feature moves Anthropic's tooling closer to the AI agent hype around OpenClaw.

The feature requires Claude Code version 2.1.80 or later and a claude.ai login; API keys aren't supported. Teams and Enterprise organizations need to explicitly enable channels. Full details are in the official documentation.