Docs Configuration

Slack

Get urgent agent questions, approvals and trail updates in Slack, through your own Slack app running from your machine.

#Set up

bash
teamtrail connect slack

This starts the Lookout on the Slack setup. It walks you through:

  1. creating your own Slack app from a manifest (Socket Mode, so no public URL is needed);
  2. pasting its app-level token (xapp-…) and bot token (xoxb-…);
  3. picking who may use it and where notifications go.

Tokens are saved in your config folder (credentials.json, mode 0600), or read from $TEAMTRAIL_SLACK_APP_TOKEN and $TEAMTRAIL_SLACK_BOT_TOKEN. Only one teamtrail process at a time holds the Socket Mode connection.

The app asks for these bot scopes: commands, chat:write, im:write, channels:history, groups:history, im:history, mpim:history, users:read, and optionally users:read.email (to recognise you by your git email).

#What it does

  • Questions: an interrupting question becomes its own message with answer buttons. Others go into the trail's digest as a line, to answer in Teamtrail. With channel none, everything goes to the digest.
  • Digest: everything that doesn't interrupt goes out as one message per trail every digestMinutes from attention.json (default 60; the first one for a trail goes out right away). 0 turns digest messages off; Waiting on you still has everything. See Waiting on you.
  • Approvals: sign off verified work from Slack.
  • Notifications: to a DM or a channel, for the events you pick: awaiting, blocked, trail.done (default) and resolved, with full detail or titles only.
  • /scout slash command: decide [text], status [trail], inbox, help.
  • Save as decision: a message shortcut that records a thread as a decision.

#Settings

Change notifications, allowed people and the target in the Lookout's Slack settings. They're stored in slack.json in your config folder. Per repo, .teamtrail/.agents/slack.json tracks which Slack message carries which agent question.