Connecting Knock to your Slack workspace

The Knock Slack extension connects your team's Slack workspace to Knock. It lets your team launch Knock agents directly in Slack and powers Internal Slack channels for sending workflow messages to channels and people in your workspace.

1. Go to Settings > Extensions in the Knock dashboard.
2. Click "Connect" next to the Slack extension or go to the installation page here.
3. You'll be prompted to install the Knock app for Slack in your workspace.
4. After installing, you'll be redirected to Knock to finalize the installation.
5. Prompt the Knock agent in a direct message or tag @Knock in any channel.

Connecting the extension does not create an Internal Slack channel automatically. To use the connection for workflow messages, create an Internal Slack channel from Settings > Channels and sources.

In order to use the Knock Slack extension, users will need to link their Slack user account to their Knock account.

Users within your Slack workspace can authenticate by prompting the Knock agent in a direct message or tagging @Knock in any channel. They will receive a DM with a button to authenticate. Clicking the button will take them to the Knock dashboard where they can authenticate their account.

After connecting the extension, you can create one managed Internal Slack channel for your Knock project. Workflow authors can use that Knock channel to select a Slack channel or person as the destination for each step, without managing a Slack app, bot token, or recipient channel data.

See Sending messages to your team's Slack workspace for setup and delivery behavior.

Users can kick off an agent session by prompting the Knock agent in a direct message or tagging @Knock in any channel. The agent will respond with a message indicating that it has started and will begin processing the user's request.

The Knock app will only be available in the public channels that it has been invited to. You can invite the Knock app to a channel by at-mentioning it in the channel, or using the "Add to channel" button in Slack.

Here are some example prompts you can use to kick off an agent session:

• @Knock create a new onboarding workflow that sends a welcome campaign to new users
• @Knock draft our May newsletter using the most recent changelogs from our website
• @Knock build a new in-app guide promoting a customer discount for our upcoming event
• @Knock create a new audience of paid subscribers
• @Knock find all of my workflows that are sending emails

For every resource that the agent modifies, it will return a link to each resource, visible in the conversation history. Clicking a link will open the resource in the Knock dashboard.

By default, the Knock Slack extension will operate in the development environment. You can specify a different environment by referencing it within your prompt. The Knock agent will attempt to automatically determine the environment based on the context of the prompt.

As an example, you can specify the environment in a prompt like this:

@Knock in the production environment, update the subject line of the welcome email to 'Welcome to our platform!'

In each agent session, you can click the "Open agent" button to view the full conversation history in the Knock dashboard. Any user within your Slack workspace can click the "Open agent" button to view that thread's conversation history.

Users can disconnect their linked Slack account from their user settings under Settings > Profile > Overview at any time. Once disconnected, they will no longer be able to use the Knock Slack extension as that user.

An administrator can manage or disconnect the workspace extension from Settings > Extensions. Disconnecting the workspace stops agent sessions and Internal Slack delivery. Any Internal Slack channel and its workflow references are preserved so delivery can resume after the workspace is reconnected.

Knock requests these Slack permissions for the Knock Slack extension to work within your workspace:

Permission	Why we need it
app_mentions:read	Lets the Knock agent respond when a user @mentions the app in a channel. This is the primary way users start a conversation with the agent in shared channels.
assistant:write	Powers the Slack Assistant experience: shows thread status (e.g. "Thinking…") while the agent runs, and uses Slack's Assistant thread APIs so responses feel native in Slack.
chat:write	Sends agent replies and Internal Slack workflow messages to conversations the Knock Slack app can access.
chat:write.public	Sends Internal Slack workflow messages to public channels without requiring the Knock Slack app to be invited first.
channels:read	Lists public channels so workflow authors can choose an Internal Slack destination.
channels:history	Reads recent messages in public channel threads (via conversations.replies) so the agent has conversation context when a user continues a thread. Limited to the 25 most recent messages in that thread.
groups:read	Lists private channels where the Knock Slack app is a member so workflow authors can choose them as Internal Slack destinations.
groups:history	Same as channels:history, but for private channels and group DMs (mpim), so thread context works outside public channels.
im:history	Reads recent messages in 1:1 DMs so the agent can follow an ongoing direct-message conversation. DMs don't emit app_mention events, so message history is needed for context on follow-ups.
im:read	Finds direct-message conversations used by the Knock agent.
im:write	Opens direct-message conversations for agent replies and Internal Slack messages sent to a person.
users:read	Lists people for Internal Slack destinations and looks up display names when building agent thread transcripts.
files:read	Downloads image files shared in a thread (when users attach screenshots or other images) so the agent can understand visual context in the conversation. Images are capped in size and count.