Browse, share, and create Slackbot skills

Skills give Slackbot step-by-step instructions for handling specific tasks so 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.

What makes a good skill?

The best skills come from things you do 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
• Analyzing and summarizing data from several spreadsheets

Slackbot can use skills, built by members of your company and customized for how you work, to take care of any number of complex tasks for you.

How skills work

• Browse all of the skills available in your workspace or Enterprise organization, and add them to Slackbot so they're available for it to use.
• All members can create and share skills. Ask Slackbot to help you build a skill, or create your own. 
• Slackbot will look for the right skills to use when generating a response, but you can also add a particular skill to your prompt like you would with a file, channel, or person.
• Owners and admins can add skills for groups of people based on the work they need to do.

Browse and add skills

In order 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 you'd like to use:

1. From your desktop, click   Slackbot at the top of the screen. 
2. Click the   Skills tab. 
3. Select   Add skill and click Browse skills. 
4. Click on a skill to view more details, and select Add to Slackbot to add it to your Skills tab.  

Share a skill

Anyone can share skills with others in Slack. Once someone adds a skill to Slackbot, it will be used whenever they ask Slackbot a relevant question or send a related prompt. Here’s how to share a skill:

1. From your desktop, click   Slackbot at the top of the screen. 
2. Click the   Skills tab. 
3. Hover over a skill and select   Share skill.  
4. Choose channels or people, then click Share.  

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

1. From your desktop, click   Slackbot at the top of the screen. 
2. Click the   Skills tab. 
3. Click   Add skill and select Create with Slackbot. 
4. Slackbot will ask a series of questions to understand what you want your skill to do, then request approval before it creates the skill. 
5. When it’s done, open the skill to view it or send a message to Slackbot to test it out. You can make changes to the skill yourself, or ask Slackbot to make them for you.

Create a skill from scratch

1. From your desktop, click   Slackbot at the top of the screen. 
2. Click the   Skills tab. 
3. Click   Add skill and select Create from scratch.
4. 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. 
5. Click [New Skill] to add a name for your skill that explains what it does. 
6. Below Steps, write out the steps of the process Slackbot should follow. You can add as many steps as you need.
7. Below Output, describe the output format you want (ex., a canvas or a drafted Slack message).
8. 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  
• Available on the new version of Business+ and Enterprise+ plans
• Available on the Business+ and Enterprise Grid plans with the legacy Slack AI add-on