Slack

Slack is a widely-used chat application. We are moving toward using it for seamless communication across the CS Department and the CST generally.

Add channels

Slack advises that you can't have "too many channels". Channels should be based on topics not just groups of people.

Fortunately, adding channels is easy: in the right sidebar, find the section header "Channels" and click the neighboring "+".

Apps

Slack has deprecated the webhook integration tool we had previously used for GitLab integrations. We're now following their supported mechanism for handling it. You may use this as a model for future Slack apps.

The free Slack version supports up to ten apps and integrations. We have one app, "GitLab Notifications", which we are gradually integrating into a subset of our channels.

To visit it (you must be an admin or owner of the workspace), go to the right sidebar, scroll to the bottom, and click "Apps". You'll see "GitLab Notifications" on the list.

Here's the guide from Slack to sending incoming messages to a webhook.

Here's the app home page.