slackfmt

name

slackfmt

description

Copy or format text for Slack with rich formatting preserved. Use this whenever the user wants to copy something to Slack, paste into Slack, send a message to Slack, or format or prepare any text or message for Slack — phrases like copy this to Slack, copy for Slack, format for Slack, paste into Slack, make it Slack-ready, or slackify this. Converts markdown to Slack rich text on the clipboard so bold, italic, lists, code blocks, links, and quotes survive the paste.

slackfmt

Convert markdown to Slack's native rich text format and copy to clipboard. When pasted into Slack, all formatting (bold, italic, lists, code blocks, links, blockquotes) is preserved.

This is a local, dependency-free tool (slackfmt, next to this file) — it does not fetch anything from a package registry at runtime. The script is directly executable via its shebang (uv run --script), so invoke it as a normal command.

When to Use

Use this skill whenever Slack and copying/formatting/pasting are both in play. Triggers include:

• "copy this to Slack" / "copy this for Slack" / "copy to Slack"
• "format this for Slack" / "make this Slack-ready" / "slackify this"
• "paste into Slack" / "send this to Slack"
• The user has markdown (or a message/summary) that is destined for Slack and wants formatting preserved

Slack limitations: Headings are converted to bold text. Only basic formatting is supported (bold, italic, strikethrough, code, links, lists, blockquotes, code blocks).

Requirements

• uv must be installed — the script bootstraps its own (empty) environment via its shebang (uv run --script).
• On Linux, a clipboard tool that can set custom MIME types: wl-copy (Wayland) or xclip (X11). macOS needs nothing extra (uses the system pasteboard via the Objective-C runtime).

CLI Usage

# Pipe markdown to slackfmt (copies to clipboard by default)
echo "**bold** and _italic_" | ~/.claude/skills/slackfmt/slackfmt

Flags:

• --stdout — Print the Quill Delta JSON to stdout instead of copying to clipboard (useful for inspection/debugging).

Instructions

1. Compose the content as markdown in an echo or printf command
2. Pipe it to ~/.claude/skills/slackfmt/slackfmt
3. The formatted content is copied to the system clipboard
4. User can paste directly into Slack with formatting preserved

Example

echo '- **Performance**
  - Dashboard speed improvements
  - 90% faster queries
- **Bug Fixes**
  - Fixed mobile layout issue' | ~/.claude/skills/slackfmt/slackfmt

Tips

• Use * or ** for bold, _ or * for italic (standard markdown)
• Nested lists work — use 2-space indentation
• Links: [text](url) becomes clickable in Slack
• Code blocks: use triple backticks
• Blockquotes: use >
• Headings (#, ##, etc.) are converted to bold paragraphs

Linux note

On Linux only the org.chromium.web-custom-data clipboard flavor (the one Slack reads) is published; a coexisting plain-text flavor is not guaranteed, because wl-copy/xclip own the selection per invocation. On macOS both the rich flavor and the raw markdown (plain text) are set.