Slack

Slack is the highest-signal source for collaboration context — what you discussed, with whom, and what was decided. It’s also the most privacy-sensitive, so DevRecall is conservative about what it stores.

Connect

devrecall auth slack

This opens a browser for OAuth. Slack does not support localhost redirect URIs, so the flow goes through relay.devrecall.dev — the relay forwards the auth code to your local agent and then deletes its copy. The relay never sees the token.

Tokens are stored in ~/.devrecall/tokens/slack.json (0600).

Workspace admin approval

Many workspaces require admin approval for OAuth apps. If your workspace has “Approved Apps” enabled, your admin will see the request and need to approve DevRecall before you can finish connecting.

The DevRecall OAuth app requests user-token scopes — it acts as you, not as a bot in the workspace.

What gets collected

Activity	What
Messages you sent	Channel, timestamp, text, thread parent
Threads you participated in	Full thread context
Reactions you gave	Emoji + target message (lightweight signal)
Channel activity	Which channels you were active in

Not collected by default: other people’s messages outside threads you participated in, DMs (opt-in only), file contents.

Storage modes

You control how much of your Slack activity is stored, per channel or globally:

Mode	What’s stored	Use when
full (default)	Full message text	Want accurate standups
summary	LLM-generated thread summaries only	Want privacy + utility
metadata	Channel, time, participants — no text	Maximum privacy

DMs default to metadata.

{
  "slack": {
    "default_mode": "full",
    "channel_overrides": {
      "private-leadership": "metadata",
      "general": "summary"
    }
  }
}

Required scopes

Scope	Purpose
channels:history	Read public-channel messages
channels:read	List public channels
groups:history	Read private channels you’re a member of
groups:read	List private channels
users:read	Get profiles for identity resolution
users:read.email	Get emails for cross-source identity merge
reactions:read	Track reactions you gave
search:read	Efficient “find my messages” queries

im:history (DMs) is not requested by default.

Rate limits

Slack uses tiered rate limits (20–100 req/min depending on endpoint). DevRecall uses search.messages to find your own messages in one call across all channels — a daily sync is typically 10–30 requests.

Multiple workspaces

Run devrecall auth slack again for each workspace. Each token is stored separately.