Slack Docs

Slack Platform Documentation

Help the developer find the right page on the official Slack documentation site (https://docs.slack.dev) and read it as clean markdown, so answers come from the live docs rather than memory. The site exposes three machine-readable surfaces an agent can use directly, with no authentication and no Slack workspace:

• A search API method: GET https://docs.slack.dev/api/v1/search?query=<q>&category=<c> returns ranked page hits as JSON. Scope every search with a category (guides, reference, a specific SDK, etc.); an uncategorized search skews heavily toward SDK pages.
• Per-page markdown: every page is available at its URL + .md (e.g. /quickstart.md).
• Index files: /llms.txt (a curated overview) and /llms-sitemap.md (a list of every markdown page).

If $0 is provided, it is either a docs.slack.dev URL (jump to the Fast Path) or a topic to search (start at Step 1). For a broad "how do I build X on Slack?" question rather than one specific page, read https://docs.slack.dev/llms.txt first; it is a curated, LLM-oriented overview of the platform and the recommended build path.

Critical rules:

• The docs are the source of truth. Do not answer a factual question about the Slack platform from memory; discover the page, fetch it, then answer from what it says.
• Prefer the .md version of any page over the HTML version. It is cleaner for reading and quoting.
• Every fetched markdown page begins with a Source: <url> line. Keep that URL so you can cite the page back to the developer.

DO NOT rules:

• DO NOT invent documentation URLs. Get them from the search API, the sitemap, or a link the developer gave you then verify by fetching.
• DO NOT paraphrase a page you have not actually fetched. If a fetch fails, say so rather than filling the gap from memory.
• DO NOT assume every URL has a .md version. If a fetch returns an error, fall back to the search API or the sitemap (Step 1) rather than guessing another URL.

Fast Path (the developer already has a URL)

If the developer pasted a https://docs.slack.dev/... link, skip discovery and go straight to Step 2 to fetch and read it.

Step 1: Discover the Page (search)

Use the docs search API to find candidate pages. WebFetch this URL, with the query URL-encoded and a category to scope the results:

https://docs.slack.dev/api/v1/search?query=<url-encoded query>&category=<category>&limit=5

Always start with a category. An uncategorized search is dominated by SDK reference pages (a query like socket mode or oauth can return a top 10 that is entirely Bolt/Node pages), which buries the conceptual and reference content most questions are actually about. Pick the starting category from the developer's intent:

• guides — the default for "how do I…", "what is…", and conceptual platform questions (Events API, OAuth, Socket Mode, manifests, modals, App Home). Start here when in doubt.
• reference — for a specific method, event, scope, object, or Block Kit element, especially an exact name like chat.postMessage.
• A tool/SDK category (python, javascript, java, slack_cli, slack_github_action, deno_slack_sdk) — only once you know the developer's tool. See Step 3.

So socket mode as a concept → https://docs.slack.dev/api/v1/search?query=socket%20mode&category=guides&limit=5.

The response is JSON:

{
  "total_results": 12,
  "results": [
    { "url": "/apis/events-api/using-socket-mode", "title": "Using Socket Mode" }
  ],
  "limit": 5
}

Scan results for the best title/url match, then read it in Step 2. A query is required; calling the endpoint with no query returns a 400 with an error field.

Full set of categories:

If a categorized search returns no good hit, widen it: try the other likely category (guides ⇄ reference), then drop category entirely as a last resort. An unrecognized value returns a 400 with an error field listing the valid categories, so re-run with one of those or with no category.

Fallbacks when search does not surface a good hit, or returns a 500/temporary error (the endpoint is rate-limited and cached ~5 minutes):

• WebFetch https://docs.slack.dev/llms-sitemap.md, a flat list of every documentation page's .md URL, and scan it for the relevant path.
• For API reference lookups, the enriched index pages are often faster: https://docs.slack.dev/reference/methods.md, .../events.md, .../scopes.md, .../objects.md, and .../block-kit.md each list every item with a one-line description and a .md link.
• If the developer has the Slack CLI, slack docs search "<query>" does the same discovery from the terminal (see the slack:slack-cli skill).