| name | slack-message |
| description | Compose a Slack message and put it on the clipboard as ready-to-paste rich text using the `slackcopy` tool. Use whenever Andrew asks to write, draft, or reword a Slack message, post, announcement, update, or "give me a message for the team/channel" that he intends to paste into Slack. Writes the message in Markdown, runs it through `slackcopy` so it lands on his clipboard already formatted, and shows the Markdown for review. Applies his Slack style rules (no em-dashes, sparing emphasis, natural human tone). Do NOT use for sending via the Slack MCP/API; this is for messages he pastes himself. |
slack-message
Andrew writes Slack messages by composing Markdown, converting it to Slack rich
text on the clipboard with slackcopy, and pasting. This skill covers how to
produce those messages so they (a) paste with correct formatting and (b) read
like a person wrote them.
The delivery step (do this every time)
After composing the message, put it on his clipboard by piping the Markdown to
slackcopy over a quoted heredoc (the quotes stop the shell from eating
backticks and $):
~/bin/slackcopy <<'EOF'
<the markdown message goes here>
EOF
It prints ✓ Slack-formatted rich text copied to clipboard. Then:
- Tell him it is on his clipboard, ready to paste into Slack.
- Also show the Markdown in your reply (in a fenced block) so he can read and tweak it.
slackcopy is a local tool at ~/bin/slackcopy (source: ~/Projects/slackcopy).
It parses Markdown with a real CommonMark parser and writes text/html to the
clipboard, which is what Slack formats on paste. He can also copy Markdown himself
and trigger it with the Raycast "Slackify Clipboard" hotkey.
Style rules (Andrew's preferences)
These are the point of the skill. Follow them.
- No em-dashes. Never use
—. Restructure instead: use a comma, a colon, a
period and a new sentence, or parentheses. (Hyphens in compound words and en
dashes in numeric ranges are fine; the banned character is the em-dash used as
a sentence connector.)
- Emphasis is rare. Real Slack messages are mostly plain text. Heavy bold and
italics, or bolded "headers", are an easy AI-tell. Default to plain prose. Reach
for bold or italics only when one specific word genuinely needs it, and rarely.
- Do not decorate with headings. A
## heading becomes a bold line in Slack,
so a wall of headings reads as over-emphasis. At most one short heading on a
longer announcement; usually none.
- Sound like him, not like an assistant. Skip filler openers and stock phrases
("I just wanted to take a moment", "doesn't go unnoticed", "day in and day out",
"I'm thrilled to"). Be direct and concrete. Short sentences. Specifics over
superlatives.
- Emoji: a few are fine for warm or celebratory messages, none for routine or
technical ones. Do not pepper every line.
- Length: match the ask. Most Slack messages are a few lines. Use a list only
when there are genuinely distinct items.
What survives into Slack (so you know what you can use)
slackcopy maps these correctly on paste:
| Markdown | Slack result |
|---|
**bold**, *italic*, ~~strike~~ | bold / italic / strikethrough |
`code`, fenced ``` blocks | inline code / code block |
[text](url) | link |
> quote | block quote |
- item, 1. item | bullet / numbered list |
## Heading | a bold line on its own (Slack has no real headings) |
Avoid: tables (Slack does not render HTML tables in messages; use a short list or
a code block instead) and images.
Gotchas
- Use a quoted heredoc (
<<'EOF') so backticks, $, and * are not mangled
by the shell before slackcopy sees them.
- A heading placed directly before a list is handled (the heading stays on its own
line); other unusual block adjacencies can render oddly, so if he reports a
layout glitch, treat it as a
slackcopy bug in ~/Projects/slackcopy, not a
reason to change the message.
- Headings render as bold, which counts against the "sparing emphasis" rule. That
is another reason to prefer plain opening lines over
## headings.
