# Let Your AI Agent Use Slack: One CLI, No Slack App Needed > Source: > Published: 2026-08-23 14:44:36+00:00 Your AI agent can read your repo, run your tests, and open a pull request. Then it hits a wall. The context it needs is in Slack: the incident thread, the decision nobody wrote down, the "we changed the deploy order last week" message. Getting an agent into Slack normally means building a Slack app, picking OAuth scopes, and waiting for an admin to approve it. That is a lot of work before the first useful message. ** SlackCLI** is a different path. It is a single open source binary that talks to Slack from your terminal, and every read command speaks JSON. If your agent can run a shell command, it can use Slack. SlackCLI is an unofficial project. It is not affiliated with or supported by Slack Technologies. ``` brew tap shaharia-lab/tap brew install slackcli slackcli auth login-auto ``` `login-auto` opens a browser, you sign in to Slack the way you always do, and SlackCLI captures the session tokens for **every workspace on that account**. Nothing leaves your machine. Credentials land in `~/.config/slackcli/workspaces.json` with file mode `0600` . Prefer a real bot token for a server or a CI job? That works too: ``` slackcli auth login --token=xoxb-your-token --workspace-name="My Team" ``` Now try something: ``` slackcli conversations unread ``` Demo: [https://github.com/shaharia-lab/slackcli#-see-it-in-action](https://github.com/shaharia-lab/slackcli#-see-it-in-action) Sign in, browse conversations, search the workspace, read a thread from a permalink, reply, react, read a Canvas as Markdown, and pipe `--json` into `jq` . All from the terminal. Most agent frameworks are happiest when a tool is a plain command with plain output. SlackCLI is built exactly that way. `--json` , so the agent gets structured data instead of screen scraping.`0` on success, `1` on failure. An empty search result is still a success, so check the data, not the exit code.`--workspace=automation-bot` to any command to pick an identity on purpose. ``` slackcli conversations unread --json | jq '[.unread_channels[] | {name, unread_count}]' ``` Feed that to a model and you have a morning digest. ``` slackcli conversations read --permalink="$LINK" --json | jq -r '.messages[].text' ``` The JSON also carries a resolved `users` array, so user IDs are not opaque. ``` slackcli search messages "deploy failed" --in=engineering --limit=50 --json ``` All of Slack's own search operators work: `in:` , `from:` , `before:` , `after:` , `has:` , `is:` . ``` slackcli search channels incident --json slackcli search people "ada@example.com" --json slackcli messages send --permalink="$LINK" --message="Root cause found, fix is in #4821" ``` Passing a permalink replies in that thread, so no ID juggling is needed. ``` slackcli messages send \ --recipient-id=C1234567890 \ --message="Nightly build report" \ --blocks='[{"type":"markdown","text":"# Nightly build\n\n- [x] Build\n- [x] Tests\n- [ ] Deploy"}]' ``` Native Block Kit `markdown` and `table` blocks mean headings, task lists, code fences, and real tables instead of a wall of text. ``` slackcli canvas read F1234567890 --json | jq -r '.markdown' ``` Team runbooks and specs often live in a Canvas. Now they are just Markdown your agent can read. You do not need an SDK or an MCP server. Give the agent shell access and one short instruction block: ``` You can use the `slackcli` command to work with Slack. Read commands (always add --json): slackcli conversations unread --json slackcli conversations read --json slackcli search messages "" --in= --json slackcli canvas read --json Write commands (ask me first): slackcli messages send --permalink= --message="" slackcli messages react --permalink= --emoji= Run `slackcli --help` if you need the exact options. ``` That is the whole integration. A useful first prompt: Read the last 50 messages in #incidents, find any unresolved issue from today, and draft a summary for me. Do not post it yet. Because `slackcli --help` prints the authoritative options for the installed version, an agent can discover the rest on its own. Slack access is real access, so a few rules are worth setting up front. `~/.config/slackcli/workspaces.json` and the browser profile hold live credentials. Do not commit them, sync them, or copy them around. `slackcli auth logout` clears both.`slackcli auth login-auto --headless` renews them in an unattended job once the profile has signed in once. ``` brew tap shaharia-lab/tap brew install slackcli slackcli auth login-auto slackcli conversations unread ``` SlackCLI is MIT licensed, built with [Bun](https://bun.sh), and ships prebuilt binaries for macOS, Linux, and Windows. It has over 400 tests and a full [user guide](https://github.com/shaharia-lab/slackcli/blob/main/docs/README.md). ** ⭐ Star it on GitHub** if it saves you a trip to the Slack tab, and tell me in the comments what you would want your agent to do in Slack. Feature requests start as