Slack Integration

Slack is a full Brief chat surface. DM the Brief bot to ask anything you'd ask in the web app — backed by your connected tools, documents, and decisions — and capture decisions right in the channels where they happen. No context-switching required.

What can I do with Brief in Slack?

• Chat with Brief in DMs — The same AI agent that powers web chat, with streaming answers and full access to your product context
• Capture decisions — Via the /decide command, the /propose command, or @Brief mentions in channels
• Ask Brief in channels — Mention @Brief in any channel it's been invited to and it replies in-thread, using the thread as context
• Share files — Drop images, PDFs, Word docs, and spreadsheets into a DM and Brief reads them
• See your workspace at a glance — The bot's App Home tab shows recent decisions and documents

Why should I connect Slack to Brief?

Brief where your team already is

Ask questions, check decisions, and search your product context without opening another tool. Answers stream into the DM as Brief works.

Decision capture in context

Log decisions right where the conversation happens. Brief captures who, when, and where automatically.

Team adoption

It's easier to get your team to type /decide in Slack than to remember to log decisions elsewhere. Teammates without Brief accounts can still ask @Brief questions in channels (read-only).

How do I set up the Slack integration?

From Brief

1. Go to Integrations in Brief
2. Find Slack and click Connect
3. Select your Slack workspace and authorize the Brief bot
4. Choose channels Brief learns from — Select the channels Brief can read for context (public channels are pre-selected). You can skip this step and adjust later.
5. Choose channels to invite Brief to — Opt Brief into the channels where you want @Brief and /decide available. Brief categorizes channels by purpose in the background, so the most relevant ones — product and strategy discussions — surface first.
6. Done — DM the Brief bot to start chatting

From the Slack App Directory

You can also install Brief directly from Slack's App Directory — no existing Brief account needed:

1. Click Install on Brief's Slack App Directory listing
2. Authorize the app in your Slack workspace
3. If you don't have a Brief account yet, you'll be taken through a short sign-up that creates your Brief workspace and links it to Slack
4. Brief sends you a welcome DM to get you started

Chatting with Brief in DMs

Open a DM with the Brief bot and ask anything — "what did we decide about auth?", "summarize this PRD", "what shipped this week?". Brief answers with the same agent and tools as web chat.

What you'll see:

• Streaming answers — Brief posts a thinking indicator immediately, then updates the message as the answer forms, including live status for any tools it's using
• Collapsible reasoning — When Brief reasons through a problem, the finished answer shows a one-line summary ("Thought for 3s") with a See reasoning button to expand the full trace
• Suggested actions — Follow-up buttons under answers when there's an obvious next step
• Feedback and regenerate — Thumbs up/down and a regenerate button on every response, plus a View in Brief link to continue in the web app

How conversations work: you have one continuous conversation with Brief per Slack workspace — context carries across messages until you reset it. If you send new messages while Brief is still answering, it queues them and addresses each in turn.

DM slash commands

Command	What it does
/brief-new	Start a fresh conversation (clears context)
/brief-clear	Same as /brief-new
/brief-status	Show your session — message count and last activity
/brief-model	View or change the AI model Brief uses in this workspace

Brief uses the latest Claude models; /brief-model on its own shows the current model, and /brief-model <name> switches it for your workspace.

Sharing files in DMs

Attach files to a DM and Brief reads them as part of your message:

• Images and screenshots — Analyzed visually
• PDFs — Text extracted, with OCR fallback for scanned documents
• Word documents (.docx), spreadsheets (.xlsx, .xls), presentations (.pptx), text, CSV, and Markdown files — Content extracted

Files up to 20MB are supported. If one file in a batch fails, Brief tells you and continues with the rest.

Capturing decisions

The /decide command

Log a confirmed decision from any channel the bot is in:

/decide "Use PostgreSQL for the new API because of better JSON support"

Slack shows a preview of your decision text with the channel and author attached. Click Confirm to log it to Brief, or Edit to adjust the wording first.

The /propose command

For questions that still need a decision, /propose creates a pending proposal your team can weigh in on:

/propose "Should we use Redis or Postgres for sessions?"

Using @Brief mentions

Mention @Brief in a channel for conversational capture — or any other question:

@Brief we decided to use weekly sprints instead of kanban

Brief reads the surrounding thread for context, proposes a structured decision, and shows a preview to confirm or edit. Mentions also work for plain questions — Brief answers in-thread. Teammates who aren't in Brief yet get read-only answers; logging decisions and other write actions require a Brief account.

Decisions from DM chat

When a DM conversation surfaces a decision, Brief proposes it with Confirm / Edit / Cancel buttons below its answer — no command needed.

What Brief captures

• Topic — What the decision is about (inferred or edited)
• Decision — The choice made
• Rationale — Why (from your message)
• Author — Who logged it
• Timestamp — When it was made
• Channel — Where the conversation happened

Tips for best results

✅ Clear and specific:

/decide "Use React instead of Vue for the frontend because the team has more React experience"

✅ Includes rationale:

/decide "Launch MVP without social login to ship faster, add in v1.1"

❌ Too vague:

/decide "We should do the thing"

Slack permissions

Brief's Slack bot requests permissions to:

• Read messages in channels it's a member of, and your DM history with the bot — for thread context and conversation continuity
• Send and update messages — for streaming answers, previews, and confirmations
• Provide slash commands — /decide, /propose, and the /brief-* commands
• Read and upload files — to process attachments you share and send files back
• Read your email address — to match your Slack account to your Brief account
• Unfurl Brief links — to show previews when Brief URLs are shared
• Add emoji reactions — for lightweight acknowledgments

Brief does not read:

• Private channels, unless you explicitly invite the bot
• Group DMs
• Your DMs with other people

Common issues

Why isn't the bot responding in a channel?

The Brief bot isn't in the channel. Type /invite @Brief in the channel, then try again.

Why does Brief ask me to connect my account?

Your Slack account isn't matched to a Brief user. Brief matches accounts by email — click the Connect to Brief button in the bot's message, and make sure your Slack profile email matches the email you use for Brief.

Why can't I see the /decide command?

The slash commands didn't install properly. Go to Brief → Integrations, disconnect Slack, then reconnect and re-authorize.

Why did it connect to the wrong workspace?

Disconnect in Brief, then reconnect and select the correct Slack workspace during authorization.

Brief says the conversation is getting long

Long-running DM sessions eventually hit the context limit. Type /brief-new to start a fresh conversation — your decisions and documents in Brief are unaffected.

What's Next?

Now that Slack is connected:

• Chat tips — Get better answers from Brief chat
• Microsoft Teams integration — The same chat experience for Teams workspaces
• Brief agents — Scheduled agents can deliver results straight to Slack
• View integrations — See all available integrations