[FEATURE] Let the Claude desktop app attach channel plugins (--channels)

Preflight Checklist

• [x] I have searched existing requests and this feature hasn't been requested yet
• [x] This is a single feature request (not multiple features)

Problem Statement

I use the iMessage channel plugin to talk to Claude Code while I'm driving. Siri can dictate and send an iMessage hands-free, so it's the one input method that works in the car.

It only runs in the terminal:

claude --channels plugin:imessage@claude-plugins-official

I'd rather run that session in the desktop app. The transcript is a lot easier to read there when I get back to my desk. Right now I have to pick one or the other. Terminal gets me the channel, desktop gets me the readable UI.

Proposed Solution

Let a desktop session register channel plugins, the same way --channels does in the CLI.

A per-session picker would be ideal, since I don't want every session listening to my texts. A setting would work too.

Alternative Solutions

1. Run it in the terminal. Works today, but the TUI is harder to read.
2. Remote Control from the phone. Good for reading, but Siri can't drive it hands-free, so it doesn't solve the driving case.

Priority

Medium - Would be very helpful

Feature Category

Configuration and settings

Use Case Example

1. Start a session in the desktop app, in whatever folder I'm working in.
2. Turn on the iMessage channel for that session.
3. Drive somewhere, ask Siri to text myself, get replies back over iMessage.
4. Get home, open the desktop app, read the whole conversation in the UI.

Additional Context

The desktop app already loads the channel plugins. It just never registers them as channels.

These are the args the desktop app spawns Claude Code with on my machine:

--output-format stream-json --verbose --input-format stream-json
--effort xhigh --model claude-opus-5
--permission-prompt-tool stdio
--setting-sources=user,project,local --permission-mode auto
--plugin-dir .../claude-plugins-official/imessage/0.1.0
--plugin-dir .../claude-plugins-official/telegram/0.0.6

So the plugin MCP servers start and their tools show up in the session. But there's no --channels, so inbound messages hit the session gate:

server imessage not in --channels list for this session

There doesn't seem to be a settings key for it either. channelsEnabled and allowedChannelPlugins are managed-org policy settings, and the schema description says users select servers via --channels.

Possibly related: #37624 (desktop app processes conflicting with the CLI channel plugin).

Versions:

• Claude desktop 1.30096.1 (bundles Claude Code 2.1.229)
• Claude Code CLI 2.1.228
• macOS 26.6.1