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Overview

Crewship can connect your deployments directly to Slack, allowing users to interact with your crews through @mentions and /crewship slash commands in any channel. How it works:
  1. You create a Slack app and connect it to your Crewship organization
  2. Configure which deployment to invoke and how messages map to crew inputs
  3. Users interact with your crew in Slack — the platform handles message routing, input mapping, and response delivery

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Setting Up

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1. Create a Slack App

Go to Settings > Integrations in the Crewship Console and click Connect to Slack. You’ll be guided through a setup flow:
  1. Configure your app — Choose a name for your Slack app and bot display name
  2. Create the app in Slack — Click the link to create a pre-configured Slack app with the correct scopes and event subscriptions
  3. Enter credentials — Copy the Client ID, Client Secret, and Signing Secret from your Slack app’s Basic Information page
  4. Authorize — Complete the OAuth flow to install the app in your workspace

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2. Set a Default Deployment

After connecting, select a default deployment from the dropdown next to your workspace. This is the crew that will be invoked when users @mention the bot without specifying a deployment name.

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3. Configure Chat Mapping

In your crewship.toml, add a [chat] section to control how Slack messages are passed to your crew:
crewship.toml
[deployment]
framework = "crewai"
entrypoint = "src.support_bot.crew:SupportCrew"

[chat]
input_key = "query"
output_key = "messages"
Then redeploy: 
crewship deploy
See the [chat] reference for all options.

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Interaction Modes

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@Mentions (Thread API)

When a user mentions your bot in a channel, it starts a threaded conversation: 
@Crewship What's our refund policy?
  • Creates a Crewship thread behind the scenes
  • Replies in the same Slack thread maintain conversation context
  • Each follow-up message in the thread sends a new run with the full thread state
Requires the Thread API to be enabled on the deployment (enabled by default).

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Slash Commands (Run API)

The /crewship slash command runs a single stateless execution: 
/crewship run my-deployment What are the top trends in AI?
Format: /crewship run <deployment-name> <input> Slash commands also support JSON passthrough — if the input is a valid JSON object, it’s passed directly to the crew without wrapping: 
/crewship run my-deployment {"topic": "AI trends", "format": "bullet-points"}
Requires the Run API to be enabled on the deployment (enabled by default).

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Controlling Enabled APIs

Use [apis] in your crewship.toml to control which interaction modes are available: 
[apis]
enabled = ["thread"]   # Only @mentions — disable slash command runs

[apis]
enabled = ["run"]      # Only slash commands — disable threaded mentions
When omitted, both APIs are enabled by default. See the [apis] reference for details.

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Input and Output Mapping

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Input

When a Slack message arrives, it’s wrapped into a JSON object using your chat.input_key:
Messageinput_keyCrew receives
”Tell me about AI”"input" (default){"input": "Tell me about AI"}
”Tell me about AI”"topic"{"topic": "Tell me about AI"}

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Output

If chat.output_key is set, the platform extracts that field from the run result to post back to Slack. If not set, the full run output is used as the response.

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Example Configuration

A complete setup for a Slack-enabled customer support bot:
crewship.toml
[deployment]
framework = "crewai"
entrypoint = "src.support_bot.flows.chat_flow:ChatFlow"
python = "3.11"

[apis]
enabled = ["thread"]

[chat]
input_key = "query"
output_key = "messages"

[runtime]
timeout = 120

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Managing Workspaces

In Settings > Integrations, you can:
  • Enable/disable a workspace connection without removing it
  • Change the default deployment at any time
  • Disconnect a workspace entirely

[chat] Config

Chat input/output mapping reference

[apis] Config

API enablement reference

Threads

Multi-turn conversation context

Building a Chatbot

Build a thread-based chatbot