Tentacles

Tentacles connect Octomate to your agents, channels and tools. Choose an agent to do the work, a channel to reach it, and MCP connectors for the services it needs. Start with the agent you already use and add connections as you need them.

Agents

Agent	What it connects	Before enabling
Claude Code	Claude Agent SDK for driven work; hooks and transcripts for native sessions	Authenticate Claude Code as the server user
Codex	Codex app-server for driven work; hooks and rollouts for native sessions	Authenticate Codex as the server user
DeepSeek Harness	A managed dsh web process and native-session collection	Install and configure dsh; this integration is experimental
Inkling	Octomate's built-in Pydantic AI agent	Configure a model and its provider credentials

Inkling is the backup option when you want a model supported by Pydantic AI without a separate agent harness. It runs inside Octomate and has no native sessions to collect. Agent settings explain models, routes and permissions.

Channels

Channel	Where you use it	Before enabling
Slack	Channels, threads and direct messages	Create a Socket Mode app and supply its app and bot tokens
Lark / Feishu	Groups, threads and one-to-one chats	Create a bot app with a long connection and supply its app credentials
Discord	Server channels, public threads and direct messages	Add a bot to your server and supply its token
NapCat	Group chats and direct messages (QQ bridge)	Log in through NapCat and enable its HTTP and forward WebSocket servers
Trunkline	Octomate's web console	Build the frontend and configure sign-in; the console is in preview

Each channel guide covers app setup, credentials and its presentation of messages and approvals. Compare channel capabilities.

MCP

MCP connects tool services to your agents. Configure a built-in tentacle, add a provider preset, or add an endpoint through Trunkline. Each person installs and authorises the connections they want to use.

Enable a tentacle

1. Open tentacles.yaml in your config home.
2. Add the block from the integration's guide under the existing tentacles: key. Give it a stable id and supply its required settings and credentials in YAML or environment variables. .env is optional.
3. Set enabled: true if the setup generator left it disabled. Omitted enabled defaults to true. Bind each channel to the ids of enabled agents.
4. Check the configuration and restart Octomate. For a managed Mac, use octomate service restart.
5. Send a message through the channel and check the reply. For native sessions, complete the agent's hooks and MCP setup.

For example, this enables Claude Code and makes it the entry agent in Trunkline:

tentacles:
  claude:
    type: claude
    enabled: true
    permission_mode: default
  trunkline:
    type: trunkline
    enabled: true
    agents: [claude]

This is the tentacle registry only. Trunkline also needs sign-in and a frontend build. The first id in a channel's agents list answers new conversations; later entries are additional routes. See the registry rules before adding more instances.