If your team works in Slack, you've probably seen the same messages repeatedly pop up.
“Who owns this?” “Can someone approve this?” “Where’s the link?”
At some point, it stops being collaboration and starts becoming a frenzy. You patch things together with reminders, slash commands, maybe a Notion doc on the side — oh, and don’t forget the Linear page to track the Notion document.
And if you’ve ever tried to build AI chatbots to solve this, you know the problem: Slack is where everything happens, but there’s no strong system to move things forward.
That’s exactly what a well-scoped Slackbot brings.
What is a Slackbot?
A Slackbot is an application registered inside Slack that listens to specific event types — like messages, mentions, slash commands, or interactions — and responds based on logic defined outside Slack.
It’s typically registered as part of a Slack app, authenticated with a bot token, and connected to an external service like an AI chatbot that handles incoming events and returns structured responses.
Slackbots operate within the Slack Events API model, using webhook URLs, scopes, and permission tokens to process input and send replies in your workspace.
Top Use Cases for Slackbots
At Botpress, we use Slack for everything from quick async approvals to debugging flows with the team, and a lot of that runs through bots.
Slack hosts over 750,000 bots which are used across 45% of the active workspaces on the platform.
These aren’t just nice-to-haves. They help users stay unblocked without switching tools or chasing threads.
Here are a few Slackbot use cases that we’ve either built for or seen others build.
Triggering workflows from commands
Some actions don’t need a dashboard. A simple command in Slack is often faster.
Slackbots can listen for slash commands, message patterns, or emoji reactions, and use them to trigger workflows in the background.
You can spin up test environments, file tickets, start a post-mortem, or publish a bot directly from a thread.
The bot handles the handoff, moves the workflow forward, and posts back when it’s done.
Searching Documents
People ask repeat questions in Slack — things that live in docs but don’t always get surfaced quickly. A slackbot powered by retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) can answer directly in the thread.
It searches your Knowledge Base and replies with the most relevant content or link.
Someone asks a question in Slack, and the bot replies with a relevant answer (or a link to it).
Done well, this saves a ton of “where’s the link for…” chatter.
Routing internal requests to teams
When someone drops a request into Slack — a lead that needs a demo, a task that needs assignment, a calendar slot to book — it often just sits there unless someone owns it.
Slackbots can step in and route those requests automatically.
One such bot we use here at Botpress is Gordon, which watches for demo-related triggers, pulls in the prospect’s info, checks rep availability, and drops a Calendly link right in the thread.
It’s part lead generation chatbot, part booking chatbot — scoped tightly to close the loop in Slack.
Automating Team Rituals
Slackbots work great for recurring team moments that are easy to skip — daily check-ins, end-of-week wins, retro prompts, etc.
Instead of manually nudging, the bot contacts each teammate, gathers responses, and posts a summary in a single thread.
How Slackbots Work
Slackbots work by catching events from Slack and responding through APIs. Slackbots run on external servers, listening to events from Slack and responding via the API.
They listen for signals like user messages or interactions.
At their core, Slackbots are event-driven. Slack sends the payload, and the bot then processes what just happened and sends something back.
Slack sends bots a notification when something happens
Slack lets your bot know when something important happens — like when someone sends a message, clicks a button, or types a command.
Instead of having your bot, which lives outside the workspace on the cloud, constantly check for updates, Slack pushes that information to it directly. These are called events.
You choose which types of events your bot should listen for — messages, interactions, and more.
When one of those events happens, Slack sends your bot a small package of info: what happened, who triggered it, where it happened, and anything else it might need to respond.
Bot users post responses using webhooks or APIs
Once the bot gets the event, it decides how to respond. Most of the time, this means calling Slack’s API to post a message, update something, or open a modal.
For quick interactions — like button clicks or form submissions — Slack also includes a special link the bot can use to reply right away.
Some bots just send a short message back. Others use the event to trigger something bigger — maybe update a database, talk to another service, or run a workflow.
But no matter what the bot is doing in the background, the response itself still flows through Slack.
Slackbot tokens define permissions and access
Every bot in Slack runs using a token, basically a key that says what the bot is allowed to do.
The token defines which channels it can access, what kinds of actions it can take, and what events it’s allowed to listen for.
When a bot tries to do something, Slack checks its token to make sure the action is allowed.
If it has the right permission, it goes through. If not, it’s blocked.
This is how Slack controls access and makes sure bots only do what they’re supposed to.
How to Build a Slackbot
There are dozens of ways to build a Slackbot — from simple webhook setups to complex agent frameworks.
If you're comparing tools, we break down the top options in our guide to the best Slack chatbots with real-world examples across support, internal ops, and automation use cases.
I will show you exactly how to build a fully functional Slackbot using Botpress, with live channel testing, real event handling, and tips for working with structured Slack data.
Step 1: Map out the scope of the chatbot
Before connecting anything, figure out what your Slackbot is meant to do. Ask yourself:
- Who’s going to talk to it? Internal ops teams? Sales reps? External users from a shared channel?
- What are they expecting when they do? A quick answer? A triggered workflow? A full conversation?
- How will they phrase things? Are they typing long questions or just hitting it with /commands and emoji reactions?
- What happens when the bot doesn’t know something? Will it say “I don’t know,” escalate, or fake it?
Even a rough idea here helps — it shapes how you’ll respond to events, what context you’ll need to store, and how conversational (or mechanical) the bot should feel.
Pro tip: Slack isn’t like webchat. People fire off fragments, respond in threads, @mention bots, react with emojis, and expect bots to “get” context. Your flows should reflect that.
Step 2: Create a backend for your chatbot
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Let’s start building. First, head to Botpress and create a new bot.
If you’re just looking to build a simple FAQ chatbot that answers common questions just add your Instructions and a few entries to the Knowledge Base, and the bot will be ready to respond in Slack once it’s connected.
If you're building something more advanced — like a bot that automates workflows or calls external APIs — you’ll return to this step after Step 4.
That’s when you’ll start attaching Slack-specific logic using flows, conditions, and event data.
You can also deploy the same bot as a WhatsApp Chatbot or Telegram chatbot with no extra work required. This part is Slack-agnostic: you’re defining how your bot should behave across any channel.
Step 3: Connect Slack to your chatbot backend
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Inside your bot dashboard, go to Integrations and then Slack and click Connect.
This triggers a secure OAuth flow that links your Slack app to your bot.
Once done, your bot is fully wired into Slack — it can receive messages and post replies directly in channels or threads.
Take this chance to change your bot’s avatar and name.
You don’t need to handle any API calls manually. Botpress pipes the raw event data directly into your bot, so you can start reacting to user input immediately.
Optional: Manual configuration (If you need custom control)
If you want to use your own Slack app — maybe to fine-tune permissions, use existing logic, or subscribe to specific events — you can manually configure the integration.
Manual mode lets you:
- Use your own Slack app instead of Botpress’s
- Add custom scopes (e.g. groups:read, reaction_added)
- Enable rotating tokens for security
- Set a custom name and avatar for your bot
It takes more setup, but it’s the way to go if you're building a more advanced Slackbot or need full control over what your app can access.
To follow this path, check out the full guide in our documentation — it walks you through every step and stays up to date with the ever-changing quirks of the Slack API.
Step 4: Use Slack data for the chatbot
Here’s where most people hit their first wall: understanding Slack’s event data.
Not because Slack is hard, but because you suddenly get access to a lot of structured data, and it’s not always clear what to do with it.
Every time someone interacts with your bot in Slack, it receives an event object. This event is automatically passed into your flows via the event variable.
Step 5: Test your Slackbot in a live Slack channel
Once everything’s connected, invite your bot to a channel or DM it directly. Watch how it responds — not just whether it answers, but how it uses the data from Slack through the logs on Botpress.
You can go a step further by exploring each conversation and making sure everything works according to what you scoped out.
Best Practices While Building a Slackbot
Once your Slackbot is live, the real work begins — maintaining it and making sure it behaves like a good citizen in your workspace.
Here are some battle-tested best practices to keep your bot reliable, secure, and user-friendly:
Use scoped tokens for least-privilege access
If you're going the manual route, avoid giving your bot more access than it needs. Stick to the minimal set of Slack scopes (like chat:write or reactions:read) based on what your bot actually does.
This follows the principle of least privilege and helps reduce risk if your credentials ever get exposed.
Log every input, output, and error
Always log what your bot receives from Slack, what it sends back, and what fails.
This can be made easy with built-in debugging tools, but you should also keep an eye on long-term logs if you're running in production.
Avoid storing unnecessary message history
Slack messages contain a lot of context, but storing everything forever isn’t necessary (and can raise privacy issues).
Use previous messages and message history sparingly, and avoid storing full threads unless there's a clear reason.
If you need memory, use scoped variables or short-term session storage — not a full Slack transcript.
Use fallback messages to handle failures
Sometimes Slack won’t respond, your flow might hit a dead end, or a user might send something unexpected.
Build in fallback messages on the bot manager on Slack API manager like:
“Hmm, I didn’t catch that. Want to try again or type ‘help’?”
A bot that says nothing when it breaks feels broken. A bot that guides the user out of a dead-end feels intentional.
Build a Slackbot Today
Slack gets noisy fast — approvals, questions, reminders, and no clear owner in sight.
A well-scoped bot cuts through that mess by acting in real-time.
With Botpress, you can define logic based on real Slack events, route requests without custom middleware, and plug your bot into flows that already support web, WhatsApp, and more.
You build the logic once. Then test it, trace it, and expand it — all in one place.
Start building today — it’s free.
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