MCP server
Slack MCP server
Slack's own hosted MCP server lets AI search messages, read channels and threads, look up people, draft or send messages and create canvases.
- Official server
- Communication
At a glance
- Maintained by
- Slack (Salesforce)
- Tools exposed
- 10 listed below
- Reviewed
- September 24, 2026
Why it matters
What it does and why it matters
Slack holds a company's day-to-day conversation, and important decisions are easy to lose in it. Slack now hosts its own MCP server. An assistant can search public or private messages the user can see, read channels and threads, look up people, draft or send messages and create canvases.
That turns questions such as "what did we decide about the pricing change" or "summarize the incident channel" into quick requests.
The old MCP reference server for Slack was archived in May 2025. The new server signs in as the user, so it follows the user's access. The draft tool is a good middle ground: the assistant prepares a message, and the person sends it. We start there before allowing direct sending.
Use cases
Best business use cases
Channel summaries
Find decisions
Find people
Draft updates
Canvases
Tools
Available tools
Tool names as published by the maintainer at review time. Versions change, so check the repository for the current list.
Read and write: Read and write: search, read channels and threads, send and draft messages, reactions, canvases, lists and file uploads.
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slack_search_publicSearch messages and files in public channels.
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slack_search_public_and_privateSearch public and private conversations the user can see.
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slack_search_channelsFind channels by name and description.
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slack_search_usersFind users by name, email or ID.
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slack_read_channelRead channel messages, newest first.
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slack_read_threadRead a full thread.
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slack_read_user_profileGet a user's profile details.
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slack_send_messageSend a message to any conversation as the user.
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slack_send_message_draftDraft a message for review before sending.
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slack_create_canvasCreate a canvas document.
Workflows
Example workflows
Monday catch-up
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1
Ask for a summary of key channels since Friday.
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2
The assistant reads the channels.
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3
It lists decisions, questions and open items.
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4
It links to each thread.
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5
You reply where needed.
Incident write-up
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1
An incident channel closes.
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2
The assistant reads the full channel.
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3
It drafts a timeline and root cause summary.
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4
It creates a canvas with the draft.
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5
The team edits and finalizes it.
Prompts
Example prompts
“Summarize what happened in #support since Friday, with links to the key threads.”
“What did we decide about the pricing change, and who decided it?”
“Draft a status update for #product about the release, but do not send it.”
Setup
Installation and configuration
Examples for Claude Desktop and Claude Code. Replace the placeholder values with your own keys, and store secrets outside version control.
Claude Desktop: claude_desktop_config.json
{
"mcpServers": {
"slack": {
"type": "http",
"url": "https://mcp.slack.com/mcp",
"oauth": {
"clientId": "1601185624273.8899143856786",
"callbackPort": 3118
}
}
}
}Claude Code: terminal
claude plugin install slack- Hosted server: https://mcp.slack.com/mcp.
- Needs: OAuth 2.0 user sign-in. A workspace admin must approve MCP use. Only directory-published or internal apps may use MCP..
- Claude Desktop: Customize > Connectors > + > add Slack, then complete OAuth.
Security
Security considerations
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Approve outgoing messages
Require a person to approve messages to customers until a workflow is proven.
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Limit channels
Give access only to the channels, mailboxes or numbers a task needs.
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Untrusted messages
Incoming messages can contain text meant to mislead an AI. Treat them as data.
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Keep a log
Keep a record of messages sent by the assistant.
Related servers
Servers that pair well with it
Microsoft Teams
Microsoft's Teams MCP server, part of its Work IQ preview, lets AI list and read chats and channels and post messages and replies.
Discord
A community MCP server that lets AI read and send Discord messages, react, send direct messages and manage channels through a bot.
Notion
Notion's official hosted MCP server lets AI search and read pages, create and update pages and databases, query data and add comments.
Keep exploring
Solutions and services that use it
Related services
View all related services- MCP integration Connect AI assistants to your CRM, files, databases and tools through Model Context Protocol servers, with safe permissions.
- AI workflows Step-by-step automations where AI handles the reading, sorting and drafting inside a process you control.
- Third-party integrations Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, accounting, shipping and marketing tools connected to your own software.
- AI agents AI that takes actions in your systems, such as qualifying leads or processing requests, with people checking the results.
- Voice AI Speech to text, call summaries and voice assistants that take bookings or answer routine calls.
- Internal tools Custom software for your own team: trackers, approval flows and back-office systems that replace spreadsheets.
Solutions
View all solutions- Email triage Sort a shared inbox by topic and urgency, pull out the key details and draft replies for a person to send.
- AI support agent An assistant that answers routine questions from your own content, checks orders and hands anything else to a person.
- Approval workflows Requests, approvals and reminders in one place, with clear owners and deadlines instead of long email threads.
- Internal help desk assistant An assistant in Slack or Teams that answers policy and how-to questions from your handbooks and opens tickets when needed.
- Onboarding automation Every new hire gets the right accounts, documents, training and check-ins on time, tracked in one place.
- Compliance tracking Track filing deadlines, licenses and obligations in one place, with reminders and AI summaries of relevant rule changes.
Industries
View all industries- Construction and facilities Job tracking, maintenance requests, inspections, quotes and proof-of-work photos for builders and facility teams.
- Vacation rentals Booking websites, owner and guest portals, turnover scheduling and guest messaging for rental operators.
- Property management Tenant portals, maintenance tracking, owner statements and inbox automation for property managers.
- Tax and compliance services Client portals, document checklists, case queues and deadline tracking for tax preparers and compliance firms.
- Education and elearning Course platforms, student portals, content workflows and AI tutoring assistants for schools and training companies.
- Hospitality and travel Booking sites, guest messaging, review analysis and multilingual content for hotels, tour operators and travel businesses.
Case studies
View all case studiesGuides and articles
View all guides and articles- What can AI do for a small business? Practical AI uses for small businesses, from inboxes and documents to customer support, with costs and first steps.
- AI automation vs traditional automation How rule-based automation and AI automation differ, where each fits and how to combine them.
- How to measure the ROI of AI automation Measure the return on AI automation with a baseline, the right metrics and honest accounting of costs.
- How to build an AI workflow with MCP servers Plan, connect and test an AI workflow that uses MCP servers, from a single task to a reliable process.
- AI chatbot vs AI agent What separates a chatbot that answers from an agent that acts, and when you need each.
AI models
View all ai models- Claude Haiku 4.5 Anthropic's fastest and lowest-cost Claude model, with near-frontier intelligence for high-volume and real-time work.
- Deepgram Nova-3 and Flux Deepgram's speech-to-text models: Nova-3 for general transcription in 60+ languages, and Flux for voice agents with built-in end-of-turn detection.
- GPT Transcribe OpenAI's current speech-to-text model, replacing Whisper and the GPT-4o transcribe models, with streaming and keyword or language hints.
- General purpose All-round language models for writing, summarizing, support, extraction and most everyday business tasks.
- Speech Speech-to-text and text-to-speech models for transcription, call analysis and voice assistants.
- Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite Google's lowest-cost current Gemini model for high-throughput work such as sub-agent tasks and document parsing.
Glossary terms
View all glossary terms- Workflow automation Workflow automation uses software to move work through a series of steps, such as routing, approvals and notifications, based on rules and events.
- Natural language processing Natural language processing is the field of AI that deals with understanding and generating human language, in text or speech.
- Artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence is the broad field of building software that performs tasks that normally need human judgment, such as understanding language or images.
- Zero-shot classification Zero-shot classification is sorting text or images into categories an AI model was not specifically trained on, using only the category names or descriptions.
- AI agent An AI agent is software that uses a language model to plan steps, call tools and act toward a goal, instead of only answering one question.
- Automation Automation is using software to perform a task or process with little or no human effort each time it runs.
FAQ
Questions people ask us
Have a question that is not here? Ask us directly.
Yes. Slack hosts it. The old reference server was archived in May 2025.
It can search messages the signed-in user can see, including private ones.
Yes, and it can also save drafts for a person to send.