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The Slack integration lets your team ask questions, search conversations, and get proactive updates right where they already work — no need to open the Indexbrain dashboard.

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Setup

1

Start installation

Go to Settings > Integrations > Slack and click Connect.
2

Authorize

Review permissions and click Allow to add Indexbrain to your workspace.
3

Choose channels

In Settings, pick which channels Indexbrain can sync from — nothing syncs until a channel is explicitly enabled.
4

Invite to channels

Type /invite @Indexbrain in any channel where you want it available.

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Permissions requested

Indexbrain only sees channels it has been invited to. There is no channels:join scope — it never joins a channel on its own.

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Using Indexbrain in Slack

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Direct messages

Message @Indexbrain directly for private questions:

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Channel mentions

Mention @Indexbrain in any channel it’s been invited to:
Channel replies are ephemeral (visible only to the person who asked) to keep channels from filling up with bot replies — except proactive replies (see below), which post visibly since the whole point is the team seeing them.

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Thread replies

Reply inside a thread and Indexbrain keeps the last several turns of context, so follow-ups don’t need to repeat themselves.

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Searching raw Slack history

This searches actual message history directly, separate from extracted knowledge — useful for finding a specific past conversation rather than a synthesized fact.

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Proactive responses

By default, every channel and thread is in mention-only mode — Indexbrain only responds when tagged. To let it respond on its own, tag it once and describe when it should chime in:

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Modes

Trigger mode can be set at the channel level or overridden per thread — a thread-level setting takes precedence over its channel’s default. To change or revert it, just tag @Indexbrain again and say what you want (e.g. “go back to only responding when tagged”).
  • “Respond to any top-level message announcing something was shipped or released.”
  • “Respond when someone asks a how-to question about onboarding.”
  • “Respond to top-level bug reports, including short messages like ‘broken’ or ‘doesn’t work.’”
Proactive replies are posted in a thread anchored to the message that triggered them, so they don’t clutter the channel.

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File analysis

Drop a file into a conversation for instant analysis: Supported formats: CSV, XLSX, PDF, JSON (2MB max per file). Files are read entirely in memory and are never stored — nothing is written to disk or saved as a permanent record.
Not yet supported: images, screenshots, Word documents (.docx).

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Live metrics

Indexbrain can answer live numeric questions for two connected sources:
  • Google Analytics 4 — traffic, sessions, conversions by channel.
  • PostHog — product usage/event counts.
Metric queries are not available for every connected app — only GA4 and PostHog have a live metric handler today. For everything else (HubSpot, Linear, ClickUp, etc.), Indexbrain answers from extracted knowledge, not a live numeric query. There is no Stripe integration, so revenue metrics like MRR aren’t available.

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How the data actually moves

For anyone debugging “why doesn’t it know X”:
  1. A message is posted in an enabled, invited channel.
  2. Slack’s Events API delivers it to Indexbrain in real time.
  3. Indexbrain extracts it into searchable knowledge within roughly a minute — not tied to a long batch sync interval.
  4. It becomes answerable via DM, @mention, or proactive trigger mode.
  • The channel was never toggled on in Settings.
  • The bot hasn’t been invited to that channel (/invite @Indexbrain).
  • The message predates the channel’s 90-day initial sync window.
  • The message was very short (under 20 characters for a top-level message, 10 for a thread reply) and got filtered as noise before reaching the AI.
  • The message was classified as personal/off-topic and dropped before extraction.
  • A later message produced a conflicting fact that silently superseded the earlier one.

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What Indexbrain does not do in Slack (yet)

  • No per-user accounts. Indexbrain doesn’t create an individual account per Slack user — it’s scoped to your organization’s workspace, not individual sign-in.
  • No write-back to other systems. Indexbrain can draft text (e.g. a reply or summary) but cannot send emails, update a CRM, or take any action outside of itself — every connected integration is read-only.
  • No image generation or image analysis.
  • Scheduled/recurring reports to a channel exist, but are configured through Automations, not through a plain-English Slack command yet.

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Troubleshooting

  • Confirm it’s been invited to the channel (/invite @Indexbrain).
  • Confirm the channel is toggled on in Settings > Integrations > Slack.
  • Confirm you’re mentioning it correctly.
  • Check whether enough time has passed (should be under a couple of minutes from posting).
  • See “How the data actually moves” above for the most common causes.
  • Confirm the file is CSV, XLSX, PDF, or JSON and under 2MB.