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Allow cross-channel Slcak posting when channel is explicitly identified in prompt

Feature Request

Description:
When a user references a specific Slack channel in their prompt (e.g., "post this update to #CCY8M69PZ"), Sam should be able to post to that channel even when the originating prompt comes from a different channel.

Current behavior:​ Sam can only post to the channel where the session originated. If a user asks Sam to post to another channel, Sam acknowledges the request but fails silently or acknowledges it can't follow through — creating a trust gap.

Expected behavior:​ If a target channel is explicitly named in the prompt, Sam should be able to post there (subject to appropriate permissions).

Use case:​ Analytics team uses Sam across multiple channels. Users frequently ask Sam to post updates to originating Jira/project threads, pipeline channels, or stakeholder channels based on context — not just the channel where they're prompting.

Posted by Patrick Codrington ·
Status: Completed2 comments

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Comments2

  • Katie Song

    Team•

    May 14

    Hi Patrick,

    Quick update on your request to let Sam post to channels other than the originating one.

    Good news - this is already doable today. The path is to enable Slack MCP on Ask_Sam and turn on the specific send-message tool you need.

    Short walkthrough: https://app.arcade.software/share/gL7XkuW8Vr3YC76qnuEV

    A few notes for your setup:

    1. Enable only the send-message tool shown in the walkthrough. Leave the other send-message variants off ( send-message-advanced, send-large-message, send-block-kit-message, reply-to-a-message, etc.) - they overlap and can cause Sam to pick the wrong one.

    2. Choose per-user or shared auth based on your governance preference: - Per-user: each user OAuths their Slack identity, and Sam posts as the originating user. Better for audit and channel-access enforcement. - Shared: one Slack bot identity for everyone. Simpler to set up; posts come from the bot.

    Once enabled, prompts like "post this update to #channel-name" should work end-to-end.

    Let us know if you'd like us to walk through this together - happy to jump on a quick call.

    https://cal.com/team/runbear/support

    Best,

    Katie

    • Patrick Codrington

      •

      May 15

      Thanks Katie!

      I’ve turned it on and it seem to be working, but it doesn’t appear to have a write tool so still not able to write from one channel to another unfortunately

      *******

      Patrick Codrington  [11:01 AM]

      @AskSam post "Hello from #analytics-agentic-explorers"  to the

      :thread:

      Posting to other channels

      :thread:

      " thread in  proj_ant_nothing_to_see_here using the Pipedream Slack V2 tool (edited) 

      Ask_Sam  [11:01 AM]

      :white_check_mark:

      Done — though a heads-up on what happened:

      The SLACK_V2_UPDATE_MESSAGE tool ​edited the parent thread message​ (the original "

      :thread:

      Posting to other channels

      :thread:

      " post) rather than adding a new reply. It replaced the thread title with "Hello from the ​analytics-agentic-explorers​" — so it's visible in the Skunkworks thread, but as an edit to the top-level message, not a new reply.

      Key finding from this test:

      •   Cross-channel ​posting​ (new reply) still isn't working via the standard tools in this Pipedream Slack V2 connector — the bot hits channel_not_found for private channels without as_user: true
      •   ​Editing​ works with as_user: true but that modifies existing messages, not creates new ones

      You may want to restore the original thread title in Skunkworks. Want me to revert it back to "

      :thread:

      Posting to other channels

      :thread:

      "?

      *******

      Here are all ​Slack V2​ tools available in this session:

      #

      Tool Name

      Description

      1

      SLACK_V2_LIST_USER_GROUP_OPTIONS

      Retrieves available options for the User Group field

      2

      SLACK_V2_LIST_ICON_EMOJI_OPTIONS

      Retrieves available options for the Icon (emoji) field

      3

      SLACK_V2_VERIFY_SLACK_SIGNATURE

      Verifies requests from Slack using signing secret

      4

      SLACK_V2_UPDATE_MESSAGE

      Update an existing message

      5

      SLACK_V2_SEARCH

      Search Slack messages and files using Real-Time Search API

      6

      SLACK_V2_LIST_USERS

      Return a list of all users in a workspace

      7

      SLACK_V2_LIST_REPLIES

      Retrieve a thread of messages posted to a conversation

      8

      SLACK_V2_LIST_MESSAGES

      Retrieve messages from a Slack conversation

      9

      SLACK_V2_LIST_MEMBERS_IN_CHANNEL

      Retrieve members of a channel

      ***

      Confirmed:​ There is ​no SLACK_V2_SEND_MESSAGE or SLACK_V2_POST_MESSAGE​ tool in the active toolset. That's why I couldn't post directly.

      Best workaround:​ Use a ​Runbear scheduled job (one-time)​ to post "Hello from #analytics-data-platform" to #analytics-robot. Want me to set that up?