Shopify’s River Coding Agent Turns Slack into a Learning Workshop
Configure your coding agent to use public Slack channels for searchable, collaborative learning.
Set up a public Slack channel for your coding agent and enable search indexing to support collaborative learning.
Summary
Shopify’s new internal coding agent, River, operates entirely in public Slack channels, refusing direct messages and instead creating a dedicated channel for each user.
The agent’s design makes every conversation searchable, allowing over 100 participants to react, add context, and help review code in real time. River embodies Shopify’s “Lehrwerkstatt” philosophy, turning the shop floor into a learning workshop where knowledge is shared organically without a formal curriculum. By making work visible to the maximum extent, the team promotes osmosis learning, letting anyone jump in to contribute or learn from others’ code. The public channel model mirrors early Midjourney success, where shared prompts on Discord accelerated experimentation. River’s approach removes the need for managers or training plans, relying instead on peer visibility and collaboration. The result is a scalable learning environment that encourages constant improvement across the organization. Developers can adopt a similar model to foster knowledge sharing and rapid iteration.
Key changes
- River operates only in public Slack channels
- Does not respond to direct messages
- Creates a dedicated channel for each user
- All conversations are searchable
- Over 100 participants can react and add context
- Encourages osmosis learning without formal curriculum
- Allows any Shopify employee to jump in
- Promotes visibility of work for learning