How to Invite OpenClaw to Slack Channels and DMs

Getting OpenClaw Into Your Slack Workspace

Once you've installed SlackClaw, the real power unlocks the moment you bring OpenClaw into your conversations. Whether you want it monitoring a project channel, answering questions in a shared space, or working quietly in a one-on-one DM, the process is straightforward — but there are a few nuances worth knowing so you can set things up the way your team actually works.

This guide walks you through inviting OpenClaw to channels and DMs, explains the difference between how it behaves in each context, and gives you practical patterns for getting useful work done immediately.

Inviting OpenClaw to a Slack Channel

Channels are where most team collaboration happens, and they're often the best place to deploy OpenClaw for shared, ongoing tasks — think sprint planning in #engineering, triaging issues from Linear or Jira, or summarizing weekly activity from GitHub.

Method 1: Use the @mention in the Channel

The fastest way to invite OpenClaw into any channel is to simply mention it by name. Navigate to the channel you want it in and type:

@OpenClaw

Slack will prompt you with a message like "OpenClaw is not in this channel. Would you like to invite them?" Click Invite Them. OpenClaw will join, confirm its presence with a short message, and it's ready to receive prompts from anyone in that channel.

Method 2: Invite via Channel Settings

1. Open the channel you want OpenClaw to join.
2. Click the channel name at the top to open its details panel.
3. Select Integrations, then Add Apps.
4. Search for OpenClaw and click Add.

This method is useful when you're setting up a new channel and want to configure integrations before the team starts using it. It also works well if you're an admin adding OpenClaw to multiple channels at once.

Method 3: Invite from the App's Home Tab

In Slack's left sidebar, click on Apps and find OpenClaw. From the App Home tab, you'll see a list of channels OpenClaw currently belongs to. There's an Add to Channel button that lets you select any channel you have permission to manage. This is the most convenient approach if you're doing bulk channel setup for a new team.

Inviting OpenClaw to a Direct Message

DMs are ideal when you want a private, focused session with OpenClaw — for personal task management, drafting communications, or running one-off queries without cluttering a shared channel.

Starting a DM with OpenClaw

1. Click the + icon next to Direct Messages in the Slack sidebar.
2. In the search box, type OpenClaw.
3. Select it from the results and click Go.

You now have a persistent one-on-one conversation with OpenClaw. No channel invitation required — it's available immediately. Unlike a channel, this DM thread is private to you, and OpenClaw's persistent memory means it will remember context from previous sessions. If you told it last Tuesday that you prefer bullet-point summaries and that your team uses Notion for documentation, it will carry that forward without you needing to repeat yourself. Learn more about our pricing page.

Group DMs with OpenClaw

You can also add OpenClaw to a group DM. This works well for small cross-functional collaborations — say, a product manager, an engineer, and a designer working through a feature spec together. Start a new group DM, add your teammates and OpenClaw, and everyone can interact with the same agent in the same thread. Learn more about our integrations directory.

Pro tip: Group DMs in Slack have a member limit of nine people. If your collaboration group grows beyond that, convert to a private channel instead and invite OpenClaw there.

How OpenClaw Behaves Differently in Channels vs. DMs

Understanding this distinction will save you from some early confusion and help you deploy OpenClaw more intentionally.

In Channels

OpenClaw only responds when directly mentioned with @OpenClaw. It won't read every message in the channel or interject uninvited — it respects the flow of human conversation. When you do mention it, it can see recent thread context, which means you can reference "the bug Marcus mentioned above" and OpenClaw will understand.

You can also use slash commands in channels, depending on your SlackClaw configuration:

/openclaw summarize last 7 days in #releases
/openclaw create linear issue: "Auth flow regression on Safari"
/openclaw pull open PRs from github repo: acme/backend

These commands run on OpenClaw's dedicated server for your team, which means they're isolated, fast, and not competing with other organizations' workloads. You get consistent performance whether you're running a lightweight query or a multi-step autonomous task that touches GitHub, sends a Slack notification, and logs the result to Notion.

In DMs

In a direct message, OpenClaw is always "on" — you don't need to @mention it. Just type naturally, as you would to a colleague. This makes DMs feel more like a conversation and less like issuing commands. The persistent memory works especially well here, building a running profile of your preferences, your projects, and your team's context over time.

Connecting Integrations Right From the Channel

One of the most useful things you can do immediately after inviting OpenClaw to a channel is connect the tools that channel is centered around. SlackClaw connects to 800+ tools via one-click OAuth, and you can authorize them in context — meaning you don't have to leave Slack or navigate a complicated settings dashboard.

For example, in your #customer-success channel, you might connect:

• Gmail — so OpenClaw can draft and send follow-up emails to customers
• Jira — to create and update support tickets without switching apps
• Notion — to pull in runbooks or log incident summaries automatically

In your #engineering channel, you might authorize: For related insights, see OpenClaw Persistent Context: How It Remembers Your Workspace.

• GitHub — to review PRs, check CI status, or create issues from a Slack thread
• Linear — to triage bugs and assign sprint work
• PagerDuty — to acknowledge incidents and escalate on-call assignments

To connect a tool, just ask OpenClaw directly:

@OpenClaw connect GitHub

It will respond with a one-click OAuth link. Authorize it, and the integration is live for your entire team — not just you. Because SlackClaw uses credit-based pricing with no per-seat fees, you're not penalized for having ten people in a channel all benefiting from the same connected integration. Everyone uses it; only the work performed draws from your credit balance.

Managing Channel Permissions and Privacy

A common question from team leads is: Can I control which channels OpenClaw can join? Yes. Workspace admins can restrict OpenClaw to specific channels through the SlackClaw admin dashboard. This is useful for organizations that want to keep sensitive channels — #hr-confidential or #executive-planning, for instance — strictly human-only.

For private channels, OpenClaw must be explicitly invited by a member of that channel. It cannot join private channels on its own, and no admin can force it in from the outside. This is standard Slack behavior for all apps, and it's an important privacy boundary to be aware of.

A Few Practical Patterns to Try Right Away

Once OpenClaw is in your channels and DMs, here are some high-value starting points that teams consistently find useful:

• Daily standup summaries: Add OpenClaw to your engineering channel and ask it each morning to summarize yesterday's GitHub commits and open Linear tickets.
• Async decision logging: After a discussion reaches a conclusion, ask OpenClaw to write a structured decision record and post it to your Notion workspace.
• Personal task inbox: Use your DM with OpenClaw as a capture tool — send it tasks, deadlines, and notes throughout the day, and ask it to compile a prioritized list each afternoon.
• Cross-tool status checks: In a #product channel, ask OpenClaw to pull the current sprint status from Jira, open PRs from GitHub, and any customer feedback flagged in Gmail — all in one response.

These patterns work because OpenClaw isn't just a chatbot retrieving information — it's an autonomous agent built on the OpenClaw framework, capable of planning multi-step tasks, making decisions across tools, and remembering what it learned last time. Inviting it to a channel or DM is just the beginning of what it can do once it's embedded in how your team actually communicates. For related insights, see Write Better Prompts for OpenClaw in Slack.

Next Steps

Now that OpenClaw is in your channels and DMs, the best move is to connect your first integration and run a real task. Pick the tool your team uses most — GitHub, Linear, Gmail, whatever it is — authorize it in under a minute, and let OpenClaw demonstrate what it can do in your actual workflow. The credit model means you're not committing to anything risky by experimenting freely.

If you run into any issues with channel invitations or OAuth connections, the SlackClaw support channel (#slawclaw-help in your workspace, available after install) has OpenClaw itself standing by to assist.