Mention @ellipsis in a channel or DM the bot, and an agent picks the conversation up as its prompt. It reads the thread for context and answers in place, so the request, the work, and the result all stay where your team is already looking.
A mention starts a durable conversation in that thread, and replies continue it without mentioning again. The question, the answer, and the pull request it turned into all sit in the same place your team was already discussing it.
A mention, a thread, and the PR it produced
The built-in responder is a default, not a ceiling. Point a mention trigger at Slack and the agent answering your team is one you defined: the repositories it can see, the model it runs, the prompt it follows, and the budget it spends.
trigger: type: mention platforms: [slack]One trigger block takes over Slack mentions
Slack is an output, not only an input. Any session can read a channel for context and post its result where the team reads, so the nightly job's findings arrive as a message on Monday morning instead of sitting in a log.
The eight Slack tools available in a session
Mentions, DMs, your own responder, and the tools every agent uses to report back.
Approve Slack's consent screen and invite the bot to the channels where you want to mention it. The dashboard lists every channel it has joined.
@ellipsis in an invited channel starts a conversation in that thread. A 👀 reaction acknowledges each message while the agent works.
Replies in the thread continue the same conversation with no repeat mention, so a follow-up question is just a reply.
DM the bot with no mention at all. Top-level messages are one continuous conversation; a thread under any DM message forks its own.
A mention trigger scoped to Slack replaces the built-in responder with an agent you define: its repositories, model, prompt, and budget.
Every session on a connected workspace can post to a channel when its prompt says to. This is how a cron agent delivers a Monday standup.
An agent can pull channel history or the replies in a thread, so it answers with the conversation in hand.
Slack users are matched to GitHub accounts by email, and anyone else can DM the bot for a linking invite.
Messages from other Slack bots never start a session unless they tag @ellipsis directly.
Ellipsis creates #ellipsis-operations in your workspace to post progress and ask for help when it is stuck.
The same page offers a shared channel with the Ellipsis team, so support happens where you already work.
The slack_channel react surface starts an agent whenever a channel is created in the workspace.
Open Integrations → Slack in the dashboard and click Connect Slack. Slack's consent screen lists what the app requests: reading messages in channels it is invited to, DMs, and reactions, plus posting messages and creating channels. Approve it, then invite the bot to the channels where you want to mention it.
Mention @ellipsis in any channel the bot has been invited to, and a conversation starts in that thread. Replies in the thread continue it without mentioning again. You can also DM the bot with no mention at all: top-level DMs are one continuous conversation, and a thread under a DM message forks its own.
Yes. Write an agent with a mention trigger and platforms: [slack], and it answers Slack mentions instead of the built-in responder, with your prompt, your repositories, your model, and your budget. The same trigger with no platforms list answers on GitHub and Linear too.
Yes. Every session on a connected workspace gets Slack tools, so any agent can post a message, reply in a thread, or add a reaction when its prompt says to. A cron agent with no Slack trigger can still deliver its output to #engineering every Monday morning. An account setting can restrict those tools to agents that opt in.
Mentions and DMs start conversations, and the slack_channel react surface fires when a channel is created in the workspace. That surface takes no filters: it reacts to channel creation itself.
No. Messages from other Slack bots are ignored unless they tag @ellipsis directly, so alerting and automation noise in a busy channel never starts a session.