I checked the samples/API references here:
- https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-teams/connectors
- https://dev.outlook.com/Connectors/GetStarted
- https://dev.outlook.com/Connectors/Reference
But cannot find how to mention someone in a new message to a channel.
Sorry this was never answered. This feature was added months ago - there are SDK methods called addMentionToText (Node.js) and AddMentionToText (C#) - source and usage samples here.
There's also an example here that's actually a bit more helpful. That example bot can be run very quickly on Glitch - repo and instructions are here.
Note that one of the challenges in using this API is that you have to have the user ID of the person you want to @ mention, and for that you need the team roster. Examples of how to do that are here.
Programmatic @mentions are not currently supported by Microsoft Teams, and will probably not come soon.
There is such a wish from the community in the MS uservoice portal, but it seems not to burn as much as other issues: