Slack

For most teams, Slack is where work happens — where bugs get reported, where decisions get debated, where someone says "can someone summarize this thread?" and four people open it.

Okou meets you there. Once installed, Okou is a Slack app you can @mention in any channel or DM directly. The same workflows, the same connectors, the same permissions as the web app — but in the flow of your team's conversation.

Installing

1. Open the Where Okou works page in your workspace and click Add to Slack.
2. Pick the Slack workspace and grant the scopes Okou requests:
   • Read channel and DM messages where it's added
   • Post messages and reactions
   • Read user profile info (for tagging and addressing)
   • Upload files (for attached artifacts)
3. Invite @Okou to the channels where it should be active. Okou only sees messages in channels it's been invited to.

If your Slack workspace requires admin approval for new apps, the install request goes to a Slack admin. The Where Okou works page shows the status.

How you use Okou in Slack

Three primary patterns, all of them work without any setup beyond the install:

@Okou in any channel. Okou replies in a thread, keeping the channel clean. Use this for team-visible tasks:

"@Okou summarize the last 50 messages in this thread and post the action items as a numbered list."

DM Okou directly. For private work, drafts, or anything you don't want broadcast. The DM behaves like a web chat — multiple messages back and forth, full chat log, files supported.

Invoke a workflow by name. "@Okou triage-bug-report" — Okou loads the named workflow and runs it on the current thread or message context. Useful when you've already built workflows around recurring channel work.

Common Slack workflows

The patterns the Okou team uses, day in and day out:

• Bug triage in #bug-report. Someone drops a screenshot. "@Okou triage this." Okou extracts repro steps, files a GitHub issue, replies with the link.
• Thread summarization. A long thread happened while you were asleep. "@Okou summarize this thread and tell me what I should do." Okou condenses 100 messages into five bullets and a recommended action.
• Decision logging. "@Okou capture the decision from this thread into our decisions Notion page." Okou writes a structured entry: context, decision, owner, date.
• Channel digests on a schedule. A scheduled automation runs every Monday and posts a week-in-review to #engineering or #cs. See Automations.
• Customer reply drafts. Connect Gmail, Front, or Zendesk and have Okou watch for new customer mail. When something arrives, Okou drafts a reply in your voice and DMs it to you for approval.
• Mid-meeting research. Someone in a Slack huddle mentions a competitor. @Okou brief us on [Competitor] — five bullets. Two minutes later the thread has the brief.

Etiquette and norms

A few patterns that work better than others, based on what teams settle into:

• Thread your replies. When you @Okou in a channel, Okou replies in a thread. Keep follow-ups in the same thread — that's one chat. Start a new top-level mention for unrelated work.
• Be specific about output destination. "DM me" or "post in #cs-replies" — vague destinations confuse the result.
• Use DMs for sensitive work. Drafts of customer replies, financial actions, or private analysis belong in DMs, not in shared channels.
• Don't add Okou to channels it doesn't need. Permissions are scoped by channel; minimizing access is cleaner.

Permissions in Slack

Slack permissions are scoped per workspace, not per channel. Okou can only read channels it's a member of, but actions Okou takes (post, react, upload) follow the same rules.

If you remove Okou from a channel:

• It immediately loses the ability to read that channel's history
• It can no longer post or react in that channel
• Old chat logs still show the messages Okou saw while it was a member

To restrict Okou to a single sensitive channel without giving it the rest of the workspace, you can install a second Okou in a separate Slack workspace; that's the right escape hatch for high-isolation use cases.

Common pitfalls

• Okou not responding. Check that it's been invited to the channel. Check the Where Okou works page for connection health.
• Replies in the wrong place. If a workflow posts to the wrong channel, edit its instruction to name the destination explicitly.
• Permission denied. When Okou needs a connector that's not authorized, it'll DM the requester with an authorize link. Don't ignore those DMs.
• Duplicate Okou installs. If a workspace has Okou installed multiple times (different OAuth sessions), one will win. The Where Okou works page shows which.

What's next

• See Workflows for capturing recurring channel work.
• See Automations for posting digests without being asked.
• See Permissions for what Okou can and can't do in your Slack.