GuidesConnect Slack

Connect Slack

Say you want to mention the platform's Slack app in a channel and have an Agent handle the conversation. This guide connects the workspace to Slack once, then wires a Workflow to a specific team and channel so a mention actually starts a run — with an agent step carrying the thread's continuity.

Before you start

  • Owner or admin role in the workspace — connecting and disconnecting Slack is restricted to those roles.
  • A published Agent for the pipeline's agent step to delegate to — see Agents.
  • Familiarity with how a Workflow's trigger and steps fit together — see Workflows.

Steps

  1. Go to Settings → Integrations.
  2. Click Connect Slack. This is a full navigation to Slack's own consent page — not a popup — so the browser leaves the app briefly and comes back once you approve.
  3. Approve the install on Slack's page. You land back on the Integrations panel with the team listed as connected. The platform stores only an encrypted bot token; your Slack password never touches it.
  4. Create a Workflow (or open an existing one) and expand its Trigger card.
  5. Pick Slack. The routing rules appear: optionally set a channel id to restrict the trigger to one channel — leave it blank and any channel the app is in can trigger it.
  6. Decide Only @mentions of the app — on by default, meaning only an explicit @-mention starts a run in a fresh thread. Replies in a thread the Workflow is already conversing in dispatch regardless of this setting, since a reply is part of a conversation already underway.
  7. Decide Include direct messages — off by default; turn it on if DMs to the app should also trigger runs.
  8. In the binding card below, pick the connected team and click Bind. The rules above are draft state until you do; change them afterwards and the card asks you to Update binding before they apply to live events.
  9. Build the pipeline — for a conversational bot, a single Agent step: pick the published Agent, write its instructions referencing the incoming message with @trigger.text (sender and channel are there too, as @trigger.user and @trigger.channel), and set its session mode to thread. That's what makes consecutive messages in one Slack thread continue one ongoing session, so the Agent remembers the conversation. Then click Publish.
  10. In Slack, invite the app to the channel you want it watching: /invite @YourBot. The app cannot see messages in a channel it hasn't been invited to, published Workflow or not — this step is easy to forget because nothing in the platform's UI prompts for it.

What you should see

Mention the app in a channel it's been invited to, for example @YourBot summarize this thread. Each message starts its own pipeline run — visible in the Workflow's Runs tab, with the agent step's full transcript embedded in the run's timeline — while the thread session mode keeps them one conversation from the Agent's point of view.

A reply posts back into the thread only when the Workflow declares one: an onComplete.slackReply template in its configuration, rendered against the run's final scope when the run succeeds and posted with the connected team's bot token. A Workflow that declares no reply posts nothing — the run still happened, its record is the Runs tab.

Operational notes

  • Incoming Slack requests are signature-verified within a replay window before anything is dispatched.
  • The workspace and Workflow are resolved from the Slack team id together with the trigger's binding — a team can be connected to only one workspace at a time.
  • A DM conversation keys its continuity on the DM channel itself rather than a thread, so a 1:1 exchange stays one ongoing session too.
  • A message arriving while the previous run of the same Workflow is still live is skipped for overlap, not queued — see Workflows.
  • Declared-reply delivery is at-least-once: a rare crash between posting the reply and recording it can cause a duplicate. That's expected behavior, not a bug.
  • A failed or canceled run posts nothing to Slack at all — there's no partial reply to send.

Disconnecting

Settings → Integrations → Disconnect, behind a confirmation. Disconnecting stops Workflows bound to that team from receiving Slack events — said plainly, that's the consequence, not something recoverable without reconnecting and rebinding.

If it doesn't work

  • The bot doesn't respond to a mention — check it's actually invited to the channel, check whether mentionOnly or a channel-id restriction on the binding is excluding it, and confirm the Workflow is published (a draft binding doesn't fire).
  • Runs start but nothing posts back — the Workflow declares no onComplete.slackReply, which is the default: no declared reply, no post. Read the runs in the Runs tab.
  • DMs don't trigger anything — includeDirectMessages defaults to off; turn it on for that binding if you want DMs to start runs.
  • A reply arrives twice — expected at-least-once delivery behavior after a rare crash mid-delivery, not a bug to chase.

See Settings for the rest of what lives under workspace settings, Triggers for how the other trigger kinds compare, and troubleshooting for anything not covered above.