Browse, share and create Slackbot skills
Skills give Slackbot step-by-step instructions for handling specific tasks so that you get the right output every time. Whether you’re looking to manage complex processes more easily or save time on repeatable tasks, skills make Slackbot better at helping you work.
Tip: Take a look at the Slack blog to learn more about the skills we use at Slack, then add a few to try them yourself.
What makes a good skill?
The best skills come from things that you do at work on a regular basis that follow a standard process:
- Preparing a quarterly report for your team
- Creating a marketing plan and schedule for an upcoming event
- Analysing and summarising data from several sources
Slackbot can use skills, built by your colleagues and customised for how you work, to take care of any number of complex tasks for you.
How to use skills
- Add skills for Slackbot to use from the skills catalogue in your workspace or Enterprise organisation.
- You can also create and share skills with other people in your own workspace or externally.
- When you prompt Slackbot, it will automatically find and use skills based on your request. You can also click Skills above the message field to add a particular skill (like you would with a file, channel or person).
- Verified skills with a purple tick badge have been approved by your admins as the best skill to use for a particular task, such as creating a customer presentation that follows your company’s brand guidelines.
Browse and add skills
For Slackbot to use a skill when generating a response, you need to add that skill to Slackbot. Here’s how to browse all of the skills available to you and add those that you'd like to use:
- From your desktop, click Slackbot at the top of your sidebar. If you can’t see the Slackbot tab, click More to find it.
- Open the Skills tab to browse available skills.
- Click on a skill to view more details, then click the toggle to add it to your Skills tab.
Share a skill
Anyone can share skills with other members of their Slack workspace or Enterprise organisation, and you may also be able to share skills externally so that people you work with from other organisations can use them too. Once someone adds a skill to Slackbot, it’ll be used whenever they ask Slackbot a relevant question or send a related prompt.
Share a skill
- From your desktop, click Slackbot at the top of your sidebar. If you can’t see the Slackbot tab, click More to find it.
- Open the Skills tab.
- Hover over a skill and select Share skill.
- Choose channels or people, then click Share.
Share a skill externally
When you share a skill externally, anyone you share it with will be prompted to save a copy. Others can customise the skill if they’d like, or save it to Slackbot as-is.
- From your desktop, click Slackbot at the top of your sidebar. If you can’t see the Slackbot tab, click More to find it.
- Open the Skills tab.
- Hover over a skill and click the three dots icon.
- Select Create external link, then click Copy link.
- Share the link in a Slack Connect channel, or anywhere you’d like.
Note: To prevent a skill from being shared externally, you can revoke access. Open a skill, click the three dots icon and select Revoke external links. This won’t remove any existing external copies.
Create a skill set
Skill sets are collections of related skills. Create a skill set for all of the skills your team uses to share them in one go, or group all of the skills for a particular purpose (like sales or project management) together. Anyone with access to a skill set that you create can automatically use all of the skills, including any you add in the future.
- From your desktop, click Slackbot at the top of your sidebar. If you can’t see the Slackbot tab, click More to find it.
- Open the Skills tab.
- Click New skill, then select Create a skill set.
- Enter a name and a description, then click Add a skill to add up to 25 skills.
- When you’ve finished, click Share and choose people or channels (or copy the link to your set).
Create a skill
There are two ways to create a new skill – ask Slackbot to guide you through the process, or build a skill from scratch to fill in the specifics yourself.
Work with Slackbot to create a skill
- From your desktop, click Slackbot at the top of your sidebar. If you can’t see the Slackbot tab, click More to find it.
- Open the Skills tab.
- Click Add skill and select Create a skill.
- Describe what you want your skill to do. If you want your skill to reference certain apps or MCP servers, make sure you specify which ones.
- Click Create skill.
- Slackbot will reply when it’s finished creating your skill. Open the skill to view it, or ask Slackbot to make any changes you need.
Create a skill from scratch
- From your desktop, click Slackbot at the top of your sidebar. If you can’t see the Slackbot tab, click More to find it.
- Open the Skills tab.
- Click Add skill and select Create a skill, then click Build from scratch.
- Below Description, describe what your skill will do. Slackbot will use the skill description to decide when to use it as it generates responses, and it’ll be visible to anyone viewing your skill as well.
- If you’d like, click Add below Apps to specify any apps that the skill should reference when it runs.
- Click [New Skill] to add a name for your skill that explains what it does.
- Below Steps, write out the steps of the process that Slackbot should follow. You can add as many steps as you need.
- Below Output, describe the output format that you want, for example, a canvas or a drafted Slack message.
- Click Use skill to test it out. You can make changes to the skill yourself, or ask Slackbot to make them for you.
Tip: To convert an existing canvas that outlines steps to complete a process into a skill, click Add skill and select Import a skill.
Who can use this feature?
- All members with access to Slackbot
- Available on paid subscriptions (Slackbot access and limits vary by subscription)