Slack Integration

Pilot sends real-time notifications to Slack channels as it works on issues. It supports progress updates, PR-ready alerts, failure reports, and interactive approval workflows. With the conversational bot enabled, Slack also becomes a two-way interface — chat, ask code questions, and file issues by talking to Pilot.

Setup

1. Create a Slack App

1. Go to api.slack.com/apps  → Create New App
2. Choose From scratch, name it “Pilot”, and select your workspace
3. Under OAuth & Permissions, add these bot token scopes:
   • chat:write — post messages
   • chat:write.public — post to channels without joining

2. Install and Get Tokens

1. Click Install to Workspace and authorize
2. Copy the Bot User OAuth Token (xoxb-...)
3. Under Basic Information, copy the Signing Secret

3. Configure Pilot

# ~/.pilot/config.yaml
slack:
  enabled: true
  bot_token: ${SLACK_BOT_TOKEN}
  channel: "#dev-notifications"
  signing_secret: ${SLACK_SIGNING_SECRET}

4. Invite the Bot

Invite the Pilot bot to your notification channel:

/invite @Pilot

Configuration Reference

Channel Formats

Pilot accepts several channel identifier formats:

Conversational Bot

Beyond notifications, Slack can be a two-way interface. When the conversational bot and the Slack llm_classifier are both enabled, natural-language messages are classified by intent and answered on the fast path (~1–2s) instead of always spinning up the executor:

• Chat & greetings — direct replies from a fast model
• Code questions — grounded answers from bounded file retrieval
• Issue intake — “create an issue to add a /ping endpoint” → a drafted, pilot-labeled GitHub issue the daemon then picks up

# ~/.pilot/config.yaml
slack:
  enabled: true
  bot_token: ${SLACK_BOT_TOKEN}
  llm_classifier:
    enabled: true                # classify NL messages by intent (vs regex)
    api_key: ${ANTHROPIC_API_KEY} # falls back to ANTHROPIC_API_KEY env var
    history_size: 10
    history_ttl: 30m
 
bot:
  enabled: true                  # the conversational fast path (shared across adapters)
  api_key: ${ANTHROPIC_API_KEY}
  retrieval:
    enabled: true

Notification Types

Pilot sends Block Kit-formatted messages to your Slack channel at each phase of execution:

Progress Bar

Progress updates include a visual progress bar:

⏳ Implementing changes...
[████████░░] 80%

The bar uses 10 segments with █ (filled) and ░ (empty) characters.

Approval Workflows

Pilot can request human approval before executing, merging, or retrying via interactive Slack buttons.

Enable Approvals

slack:
  enabled: true
  bot_token: ${SLACK_BOT_TOKEN}
  channel: "#dev-notifications"
  signing_secret: ${SLACK_SIGNING_SECRET}
  approval:
    enabled: true
    channel: "#pilot-approvals"

Set Up Interactive Endpoint

1. In your Slack app, go to Interactivity & Shortcuts
2. Enable interactivity
3. Set the request URL to https://your-pilot.example.com/slack/interactions

Approval Stages

Each approval message includes context (PR URL, error details, timeout countdown) and updates in-place when a decision is made, showing who approved or rejected.

Webhook Security

Approval webhooks use HMAC-SHA256 signature verification with a 5-minute timestamp window to prevent replay attacks.

Planning Error Messages

When using the /plan command, Pilot shows specific error messages based on the failure type:

The planning timeout is controlled by the planning_timeout field in the executor config (default: 2m).

executor:
  planning_timeout: 3m  # increase for complex tasks

Daily Briefs

Pilot can send daily or weekly summary digests to Slack channels.

Configure Briefs

daily_brief:
  enabled: true
  schedule: "0 9 * * 1-5"     # 9 AM weekdays
  timezone: "America/New_York"
  channels:
    - type: slack
      channel: "#team-updates"
  content:
    include_metrics: true
    include_errors: true
    max_items_per_section: 10

Brief Content

Briefs summarize Pilot activity for the configured period:

• Issues processed and their outcomes
• PRs created and merged
• Errors and failures
• Execution metrics