openclaw - 💡(How to fix) Fix Slack tooling: `slack` tool is invisible to Claude Code, and admin actions (channel/app create, invite, member lookup) are missing [2 comments, 2 participants]

Summary

Two related gaps in the Slack extension surfaced while wiring up notifications for a side project (flight-watch). Filing them together because they have one root cause (Slack tooling that the agent should be able to drive end-to-end is partly missing, partly invisible).

1. slack tool is not discoverable via ToolSearch

In a Claude Code main session running on Slack, the slack tool described in dist/extensions/slack/skills/slack/SKILL.md (react / sendMessage / readMessages / pins / memberInfo / etc.) is not loadable via the deferred-tools ToolSearch mechanism:

ToolSearch query: "select:slack"        → No matching deferred tools found
ToolSearch query: "+slack"              → No matching deferred tools found
ToolSearch query: "slack react messages send" → returns ExitPlanMode/Monitor/etc., not slack

The skill file is loaded into the system prompt fine (so the agent knows about the tool), but cannot actually call it — even basic actions like react or sendMessage are unreachable from the agent. The current workaround is to bypass the tool entirely and curl Slack Web API directly with the bot token from ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json.

Expected: the slack tool surface (already implemented in extensions/slack/src/actions.ts) is exposed alongside the rest of the mcp__openclaw__* tools — either as mcp__openclaw__slack or as a top-level slack tool that ToolSearch can find.

2. Slack admin operations are not provided

Even with (1) fixed, the existing tool only covers a Bot Token's scope (chat:write, reactions, pins, basic reads). Several common workflows still require the user to leave the agent and click around in Slack's web UI:

• Creating a channel (conversations.create)
• Inviting members to a channel (conversations.invite)
• Looking up a workspace user by email (users.lookupByEmail)
• Listing workspace members (users.list)
• Creating or updating a Slack App from a manifest (apps.manifest.create / apps.manifest.update) — useful for self-installing notification bots
• Archiving a channel (conversations.archive)

These need either a User Token or, for the manifest endpoints, an App Configuration Token. Today there is no plumbing for either in channels.slack config.

Proposed direction

1. Fix tool exposure — investigate why slack doesn't show up in the deferred-tools list visible to Claude Code main sessions. (Possibly an MCP registration issue; the tool is wired for the OpenCode/ACP side but not the Claude harness.)

2. Add slack_admin action group to the existing tool, gated on a configured admin token:

   {
     "channels": {
       "slack": {
         "botToken": "xoxb-…",
         "userToken": "xoxp-…",          // new
         "appConfigToken": "xoxe.xoxp-1-…" // new
       }
     }
   }

   New actions (initial set):

   • createChannel({ name, isPrivate?, topic? })
   • inviteToChannel({ channelId, userIds })
   • lookupUserByEmail({ email })
   • listMembers({ cursor?, limit? })
   • createAppFromManifest({ manifestPath | manifestYaml })
   • archiveChannel({ channelId })

   Token resolution: prefer appConfigToken for manifest ops, userToken for admin ops, fall back to botToken for things it can do, error clearly otherwise.

3. Action-group toggle in config (matches the existing actionGroups pattern in the slack extension) so admins can keep this off by default.

Why now

The flight-watch project (notification bot living on this Mac) needed (a) a dedicated channel created and (b) a Slack App created from slack_app_manifest.yaml. Both required manual web-UI steps. Closing this gap means the agent can stand up its own notification surface end-to-end without the user touching Slack.

I'll send the PR

Happy to drive this myself — opening this issue first to lock down the surface (especially around token plumbing and the slack_admin action-group flag) before sending the PR.