Slack

Connect Slack to your agents for messaging, channels, and events.

Overview

Slack credentials let your agents send messages, read channels, respond to events, and interact with your Slack workspace.

Why "Bring Your Own Key" (BYOK)?

By using your own Slack app, you get complete control over events and triggers. Events only come from workspaces where your app is installed—no noise from other users.

Benefits:

• Isolated events — only receive events from your workspaces
• Full control — configure exactly which events to subscribe to
• Bot tokens — send messages as your custom bot
• Webhook verification — secure event delivery with your signing secret

Prerequisites

Before connecting, you'll need:

1. A Slack workspace where you have admin permissions (or can request app approval)
2. A Slack account to create the app

Step 1: Create a Slack App

1. Go to the Slack API portal
2. Click Create New App
3. Choose From scratch
4. Name your app (e.g., "Inference Agent")
5. Select your workspace
6. Click Create App

Pick From scratch, not the "AI agent" or "Starter app" templates — those scaffold slash commands and event listeners you do not need for sending messages.

Faster: create it from a manifest

From a manifest on the same screen sets the name, bot user, scopes and redirect URL in one step, so you can skip Steps 2 and 3. Paste this, then adjust the name and scopes:

1display_information:2  name: inference agent3  description: Agent messages from inference shell4features:5  bot_user:6    display_name: inference agent7    always_online: false8oauth_config:9  redirect_urls:10    - https://app.inference.sh/settings/secrets/oauth/slack11  scopes:12    bot:13      - chat:write14      - chat:write.public15      - channels:read16settings:17  org_deploy_enabled: false18  socket_mode_enabled: false19  token_rotation_enabled: false

Those three scopes cover posting: chat:write to post and edit, chat:write.public to post to a public channel the bot has not been invited to, channels:read to list channels. Add more from Common scopes for reading history, reactions or files. Use the staging or local redirect URL from Step 3 if you are not connecting to production.

After creating it, Install to Workspace, then continue from Step 4.

Step 2: Configure OAuth Scopes

1. In your app settings, go to OAuth & Permissions
2. Scroll to Scopes section
3. Add Bot Token Scopes based on what you need:

Common scopes

1. Add User Token Scopes if you need to act as the user:

Step 3: Configure OAuth Redirect URL

1. In OAuth & Permissions, scroll to Redirect URLs
2. Add the callback URL:

1. Click Save URLs

Step 4: Get Your Credentials

1. Go to Basic Information in your app settings
2. Copy these values:

Bot token

A bot token lets an app post to Slack directly, with no OAuth round trip per user. It is what you want for one-way messaging: alerts, build results, digests, an agent that reports into a channel.

It does not exist until the app is installed, and it is not on Basic Information:

1. Sidebar → Install App → Install to Workspace → Allow
2. Sidebar → OAuth & Permissions → Bot User OAuth Token, at the top, starting xoxb-

Then give it to inference shell, either way:

Both arrive in an app as SLACK_BOT_TOKEN. Use a team secret when the bot posts to a different workspace than the OAuth app serves — keeping two workspaces in one credential record reads as a mistake later.

Adding scopes after installing does not update the token's permissions: reinstall the app, or calls fail with missing_scope.

Step 5: Connect in inference shell

Configure credentials

1. Go to vaults → credentials
2. Find Slack and click Configure
3. Enter your credentials:
   • Client ID
   • Client Secret
   • Signing Secret (for webhook events)
   • Bot Token (optional, for sending messages)
4. Click Save credentials

These are stored securely as encrypted secrets.

Authorize the connection

1. Click Connect
2. You'll be redirected to Slack to authorize
3. Select your workspace and review permissions
4. Click Allow
5. Done! Your Slack credential is now active.

Event Subscriptions (agent chat)

To let users message your agent from Slack, point Slack event subscriptions at your agent's channel webhook. Each agent has its own endpoint. Replace {agent_id} with the agent ID from the web app.

The endpoint verifies requests with your Signing Secret (no API key). Inbound messages start an agent chat; replies are delivered back to the same Slack thread, including streaming and typing indicators when supported. The platform records channel_context (channel_type: slack plus thread metadata) on the chat so later turns route replies without you resending routing fields.

→ Agents API — Messaging channel webhooks · Channel context

1. In your Slack app, go to Event Subscriptions
2. Toggle Enable Events to On
3. Set the Request URL to your agent's channel webhook (table above)
4. Subscribe to bot events you want:

1. Click Save Changes

Capabilities

Using in apps

Declare Slack requirements in your app:

1# inf.yml2credentials:3  - key: slack.channels.write4    description: Send notifications to Slack56  - key: slack.channels.history7    description: Read channel messages8    optional: true

At runtime, your app receives:

1SLACK_ACCESS_TOKEN=xoxp-user-token2SLACK_BOT_TOKEN=xoxb-bot-token3SLACK_TEAM_ID=T01234567

Example: Send a message

1from slack_sdk import WebClient2import os34client = WebClient(token=os.environ["SLACK_BOT_TOKEN"])56client.chat_postMessage(7    channel="#general",8    text="Hello from my AI agent! 🤖"9)

Example: Read channel history

1from slack_sdk import WebClient2import os34client = WebClient(token=os.environ["SLACK_ACCESS_TOKEN"])56result = client.conversations_history(channel="C01234567", limit=10)78for message in result["messages"]:9    print(f"{message.get('user')}: {message.get('text')}")

Security

• Your app — you control the Slack app and its permissions
• Signing secret — webhook events are verified using your secret
• Encrypted storage — all credentials are encrypted at rest
• Revocable — uninstall the app from your workspace anytime

Revoking access

1. From inference shell: vaults → credentials → disconnect
2. From Slack: Workspace Settings → Manage Apps → Remove

Troubleshooting

"Callback URL mismatch"

• Ensure the redirect URL in your Slack app matches exactly
• The URL is case-sensitive

"Invalid signing secret"

• Verify you copied the Signing Secret from Basic Information
• Make sure there are no extra spaces

"Missing scopes"

• Add the required scopes in OAuth & Permissions
• Reinstall the app to your workspace after adding scopes

"Channel not found"

• Your bot needs to be invited to private channels
• Use /invite @YourBotName in the channel

Next

→ Discord