For most teams, Slack is where work happens — where bugs get reported, where decisions get debated, where someone says "can someone summarize this thread?" and four people open it.

Zero meets you there. Once installed, Zero is a Slack app you can @mention in any channel or DM directly. The same skills, the same connectors, the same permissions as the web app — but in the flow of your team's conversation.

Installing

Open the Where Zero works page in your workspace and click Add to Slack.
Pick the Slack workspace and grant the scopes Zero requests:
- Read channel and DM messages where it's added
- Post messages and reactions
- Read user profile info (for tagging and addressing)
- Upload files (for attached artifacts)
Invite @Zero to the channels where it should be active. Zero only sees messages in channels it's been invited to.

If your Slack workspace requires admin approval for new apps, the install request goes to a Slack admin. The Where Zero works page shows the status.

How you use Zero in Slack

Three primary patterns, all of them work without any setup beyond the install:

@Zero in any channel. Zero replies in a thread, keeping the channel clean. Use this for team-visible tasks:

"@Zero summarize the last 50 messages in this thread and post the action items as a numbered list."

DM Zero directly. For private work, drafts, or anything you don't want broadcast. The DM behaves like a web chat — multiple messages back and forth, full session log, files supported.

Invoke a skill by name. "@Zero triage-bug-report" — Zero loads the named skill and runs it on the current thread or message context. Useful when you've already built skills around recurring channel work.

Common Slack workflows

The patterns the VM0 team uses, day in and day out:

Bug triage in #bug-report. Someone drops a screenshot. "@Zero triage this." Zero extracts repro steps, files a GitHub issue, replies with the link.
Thread summarization. A long thread happened while you were asleep. "@Zero summarize this thread and tell me what I should do." Zero condenses 100 messages into five bullets and a recommended action.
Decision logging. "@Zero capture the decision from this thread into our decisions Notion page." Zero writes a structured entry: context, decision, owner, date.
Channel digests on a schedule. A scheduled job runs every Monday and posts a week-in-review to #engineering or #cs. See Schedules.
Customer reply drafts. Connect Gmail, Front, or Zendesk and have Zero watch for new customer mail. When something arrives, Zero drafts a reply in your voice and DMs it to you for approval.
Mid-meeting research. Someone in a Slack huddle mentions a competitor. @Zero brief us on [Competitor] — five bullets. Two minutes later the thread has the brief.

Etiquette and norms

A few patterns that work better than others, based on what teams settle into:

Thread your replies. When you @Zero in a channel, Zero replies in a thread. Keep follow-ups in the same thread — that's one session. Start a new top-level mention for unrelated work.
Be specific about output destination. "DM me" or "post in #cs-replies" — vague destinations confuse the result.
Use DMs for sensitive work. Drafts of customer replies, financial actions, or private analysis belong in DMs, not in shared channels.
Don't add Zero to channels it doesn't need. Permissions are scoped by channel; minimizing access is cleaner.

Permissions in Slack

Slack permissions are scoped per workspace, not per channel. Zero can only read channels it's a member of, but actions Zero takes (post, react, upload) follow the same rules.

If you remove Zero from a channel:

It immediately loses the ability to read that channel's history
It can no longer post or react in that channel
Old session logs still show the messages Zero saw while it was a member

To restrict Zero to a single sensitive channel without giving it the rest of the workspace, you can install a second Zero in a separate Slack workspace; that's the right escape hatch for high-isolation use cases.

Common pitfalls

Zero not responding. Check that it's been invited to the channel. Check the Where Zero works page for connection health.
Replies in the wrong place. If a skill posts to the wrong channel, edit the skill body to be more explicit about the destination.
Permission denied. When Zero needs a connector that's not authorized, it'll DM the requester with an authorize link. Don't ignore those DMs.
Duplicate Zero installs. If a workspace has Zero installed multiple times (different OAuth sessions), one will win. The Where Zero works page shows which.

What's next

See Skills for capturing recurring channel workflows.
See Schedules for posting digests automatically.
See Permissions for what Zero can and can't do in your Slack.