Slackbot skills: how to create and share them, and their limits
A Slackbot skill is a saved, repeatable set of instructions that tells Slackbot how to do one task, such as a weekly customer update or a pre-meeting brief. You create one by describing it to Slackbot or by writing the steps yourself, and since October 2026 you can share a skill with people in other Slack organizations through an external link. Skills need a paid Slack plan, and real use needs Business+ or Enterprise+: Business+ members can send Slackbot 15 messages a week, and every plan gets three automatic task runs a day.
What is a Slackbot skill?
Slack's help center describes skills as step-by-step instructions that help Slackbot handle a specific task the same way every time. Each skill has a name, a description (Slackbot reads it to decide when to use the skill), a list of steps, and an output format, for example a canvas or a drafted Slack message. A skill can reference apps or MCP servers you have connected.
Slack's announcement calls a skill "a saved, repeatable AI workflow" and points out that good ones run on a schedule and read your channels. Its examples include a weekly wins journal, a customer weekly update built from a week of Slack, email, calendar, and Salesforce activity, and a call-notes logger that saves nothing until you approve it.
Once you add a skill, Slackbot uses it automatically when your prompt matches, or you can attach it on purpose from the Skills button above the message field.
How do you create a Slackbot skill?
There are three ways, all from the Skills tab in Slackbot on desktop (Slack help):
- Create with Slackbot. Click Add skill, then Create with Slackbot. It asks questions about the task and asks for your approval before it saves the skill.
- Create from scratch. Click Add skill, then Create from scratch. Fill in the description, the name, the steps, and the output format, then click Use skill to test it.
- Import a skill. If you already have a canvas that lists the steps of a process, import it and Slackbot turns it into a skill.
The best candidates are tasks you repeat on a standard process: a quarterly report, an event plan, a summary that pulls from several sources. Write the output section as precisely as you would brief a new hire, including the headings you want and what to leave out.
Which Slack plans include Slackbot skills, and what are the limits?
| Plan | Price (per user / month) | Slackbot access | Skills |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Limited trial or preview; stops when the preview messages are used | Not available unless you pay for Flex Credits |
| Pro | $7.25 annual, $8.75 monthly | Limited trial or preview; the allowance does not reset | Paid plan, so skills are allowed, but only within the Slackbot preview |
| Business+ | $15 annual, $18 monthly | 15 messages per member per week, reset Monday at midnight | Yes |
| Enterprise+ | Contact sales | No weekly or lifetime message limit | Yes |
Two more limits apply on every plan. Slackbot gets three automatic task runs per day; after that it asks whether you want to run tasks manually. And guests cannot use Slackbot at all. Workspaces connected to Salesforce can buy more usage with Flex Credits, where things like deep research and document creation count as Advanced actions.
Verified Oct 2026 (October 26). Sources: Slackbot limits and credit usage, Slackbot features, Slack pricing (list prices, excluding promotions). Limits can differ for legacy plans, so check the limits page for your workspace.
What are Slackbot skills good for, and where do they fall short?
Skills are a good fit when the work is personal and the inputs already live in Slack or in a connected app. A weekly summary of your own accounts, a pre-call brief, a translation of your call notes into a standard format: these are exactly what Slack's own examples show.
They are a weaker fit for shared, recurring team output:
- Slackbot is personal. Slack's limits page calls it "a personal AI agent." It answers the person who asks, using what that person can see. A skill can be shared, but each person runs their own copy against their own access.
- The quota is per person and small. At 15 messages a week on Business+, a manager who iterates on a weekly report can run out by Wednesday.
- Three automatic runs a day is fine for one digest, tight for several teams' scheduled reports.
- Every user needs Business+ for ongoing use, which is a plan change for many small teams on Pro.
We covered the wider trade-off in Slack AI vs a third-party AI coworker.
When does a shared AI coworker make more sense than a skill?
When the output belongs to a channel rather than a person: the Monday status update in #ops, a client report the account team reviews, a handoff when someone goes on leave. A shared agent takes the request from whoever is in the channel and posts one result everyone sees.
Geniusly is an AI coworker for your team in Slack. It reads the accounts you connect (Gmail, Google Drive, Google Sheets, Slack, GitHub, Linear, and Google Ads) and prepares a brief, report, status update, or handoff for a person to review. Connected apps are read-only by default, except Google Sheets edits you explicitly ask for, and Slack messages beyond its reply are posted only after your approval. Anyone in a channel it has been invited to can ask it for work, it can run a task once, daily, or weekly, and it has a Free plan. Its pricing page lists no Slack plan requirement. Our guide to automating weekly status reports in Slack shows the setup, and the client status update template is a good brief to start from, whether you use Geniusly or a Slackbot skill.
Frequently asked questions
What is a Slackbot skill?
A saved set of step-by-step instructions that tells Slackbot how to handle one task the same way every time. It has a description, steps, and an output format, and it can reference connected apps or MCP servers.
Can I share a Slackbot skill with someone at another company?
Yes. Since October 2026 you can create an external link from the skill's three-dot menu. The recipient saves a copy to their own Slackbot. Admins can turn external sharing on or off, and you can revoke the link, though existing copies stay.
Are Slackbot skills available on the Free plan?
No. Slack's limits page says skills are not available on the Free plan unless you pay for extra Slackbot usage with Salesforce Flex Credits. Ongoing Slackbot access starts on Business+.
How many messages can I send Slackbot on Business+?
Fifteen per member per week, from Monday to Sunday. The count resets at midnight on Monday in your time zone. Enterprise+ has no weekly or lifetime limit.
Can a Slackbot skill run on a schedule?
Slack's announcement describes skills that run on a schedule, and the limits page allows three automatic task runs per day. After that, Slackbot asks whether you want to run tasks manually.