slack

name

slack

description

Interact with Slack workspaces — search messages, read channel history, browse threads, list channels, and find users. Use this skill whenever the user mentions Slack, asks about messages in a channel, wants to check what people said about a topic, look up Slack users, or references #channel-names. Also trigger when the user says things like "check Slack", "what's happening in #X", "find messages about Y", "who said Z", or any task involving reading from Slack. Even if the user doesn't say "Slack" explicitly but mentions a #channel, use this skill.

Slack Integration

Read-only access to a Slack workspace via the Slack Web API. All scripts are in scripts/ relative to this skill and use @slack/web-api.

Setup

The SLACK_BOT_TOKEN (or SLACK_TOKEN) environment variable must be set with a bot token that has the necessary scopes (channels:read, channels:history, groups:read, groups:history, users:read, search:read, etc.).

Dependencies (@slack/web-api) are declared in the root package.json. Run npm install at the repo root if not already done.

Available Scripts

All scripts are .mjs files. Run them with node <skill-path>/scripts/<script>.mjs.

search-messages.mjs

Search across all messages in the workspace. Supports Slack search modifiers like in:#channel, from:@user, before:, after:, etc.

node scripts/search-messages.mjs "deploy issue"
node scripts/search-messages.mjs "in:#engineering bug" --count 5
node scripts/search-messages.mjs "from:@alice after:2025-01-01" --sort timestamp

channel-history.mjs

Read recent messages from a channel. Accepts channel name, ID, or Slack URL.

node scripts/channel-history.mjs general --limit 30
node scripts/channel-history.mjs #engineering --oldest 2025-03-01 --limit 50
node scripts/channel-history.mjs https://myworkspace.slack.com/archives/C01234ABCDE

thread-replies.mjs

Read all replies in a thread. Accepts channel + timestamp, or a single Slack thread URL.

node scripts/thread-replies.mjs general 1234567890.123456
node scripts/thread-replies.mjs https://myworkspace.slack.com/archives/C01234ABCDE/p1234567890123456

read-current-thread.mjs

Read the full thread you're currently responding in. Accepts channel ID + timestamp, or a Slack thread URL. Extract from your channelId (format: slack/thread/{teamId}/{channelId}/{threadTs}).

node scripts/read-current-thread.mjs C07ABC123 1234567890.123456
node scripts/read-current-thread.mjs https://myworkspace.slack.com/archives/C07ABC123/p1234567890123456
node scripts/read-current-thread.mjs C07ABC123 1234567890.123456 --limit 100

list-channels.mjs

List channels, optionally filtered by name pattern.

node scripts/list-channels.mjs
node scripts/list-channels.mjs --filter eng

channel-info.mjs

Get details about a channel (purpose, topic, member count). Accepts channel name, ID, or URL.

node scripts/channel-info.mjs general
node scripts/channel-info.mjs https://myworkspace.slack.com/archives/C01234ABCDE

search-users.mjs

Search users by name, display name, or email.

node scripts/search-users.mjs john
node scripts/search-users.mjs engineering

Workflow Patterns

When the user asks something like "check #channel for discussion about X":

1. First try search-messages.mjs "in:#channel X" — this is fastest
2. If search doesn't find enough, use channel-history.mjs with date filters to browse recent messages
3. For threads with interesting context, use thread-replies.mjs to get the full conversation

When the user asks "who works on X" or "find person Y":

1. Use search-users.mjs to find the person
2. Optionally use search-messages.mjs "from:@username" to see their recent activity

When you're responding to a Slack thread and need more context:

1. Check if <slack_thread_context> is already included in your prompt — this is injected automatically with the last ~20 messages
2. If you need older messages or the full thread, parse your channelId (slack/thread/{teamId}/{channelId}/{threadTs}) and use read-current-thread.mjs
3. Use thread-replies.mjs if you need to read a different thread (not the one you're in)

When exploring a workspace:

1. list-channels.mjs to discover channels
2. channel-info.mjs to understand a channel's purpose
3. channel-history.mjs to read recent activity

Tips

• Slack search modifiers are powerful: in:#channel, from:@user, has:link, has:reaction, before:YYYY-MM-DD, after:YYYY-MM-DD, during:month
• Channel names can be passed with or without the # prefix
• Slack URLs are accepted anywhere a channel or thread is needed — paste the permalink directly
• Thread URLs look like https://…/archives/C.../p{microseconds} — the script converts them to API timestamps automatically
• The redirect URL https://slack.com/app_redirect?channel=C... is also supported
• Thread timestamps look like 1234567890.123456 — copy them from channel-history output
• All scripts print human-readable output to stdout, so you can read and summarize the results directly