Set up agents in Slack

Connect an agent to a Slack channel so your team can investigate data and follow up in threads where they already work. Use a single-agent channel for a focused workflow, or a multi-agent channel to let the AI Router choose an agent.

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Before you begin

An organization admin must connect Slack to Lightdash, and you need permission to manage the agent. If you haven’t created one, follow Set up AI agents.

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Connect a single-agent channel

1. Open the agent’s Integrations settings in Lightdash.
2. Enable Slack and select the channels where the agent should respond.

3. In each Slack channel, open Edit settings → Integrations and add Lightdash for analytics.

4. Mention the Lightdash app with a question, such as “Show me total order amount over time”. The agent replies in a thread.

Mention the app in each follow-up message to continue the conversation. If someone mentions it without a question, it replies with a fixed welcome; the agent’s description and instructions don’t change that welcome. To let the agent read earlier messages in that thread, an admin turns on AI Agents thread access consent in Organization Settings → Integrations → Slack. It reads only that thread, including messages that didn’t mention it, rather than other channel messages.

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Slack channels: single-agent vs. multi-agent

The per-agent integration path assigns one agent to each Slack channel. For several agents in the same channel, configure a multi-agent channel at the organization level. The AI Router picks an agent for each question sent to the Lightdash Slack app. How you interact with the app depends on where you’re posting:

• New message in the multi-agent channel — no @mention needed. Lightdash picks up the message automatically and routes it to the best-fit agent.
• Reply in an existing thread — @mention the Lightdash Slack app. Without the mention, Lightdash will not respond in-thread.

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Setting up a multi-agent Slack channel

Multi-agent channels are configured at the organization level, not per-agent:

1. Go to Organization Settings → Integrations → Slack.
2. Find the Multi-agent channel setting in the AI Agents configuration panel.
3. Select the Slack channel you want to designate as the multi-agent channel.
4. Click Save.

Once a channel is designated as the multi-agent channel, all eligible agents in your organization are automatically available in that channel. You do not need to add each agent individually via its own AI Agent → Integrations → Slack settings. Scoping which agents appear: by default, agents from every project in your organization are eligible. To restrict the channel to agents from specific projects, toggle off Allow all project agents to appear and pick the projects you want to include. If you see the error “This Slack channel is already assigned to another AI agent” while trying to attach a second agent via the per-agent integration path, that path only supports single-agent channels. Switch to the org-level multi-agent channel setup described above instead.

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Linking an agent from Slack

You don’t have to go to the Lightdash UI to connect an agent to a Slack channel. When someone @mentions the Lightdash app in a channel that has no agent configured, Lightdash offers to link one right in the thread:

• One manageable agent — Lightdash auto-links it to the channel, confirms the link in-thread, and then answers the original question in the same turn.
• Multiple manageable agents — Lightdash posts an in-thread picker showing every agent the user can manage (labeled by agent and project). Selecting one links it to the channel and processes the original question.
• No manageable agents — Lightdash posts an ephemeral message asking the user to contact an admin, with a deep link to the AI agents page.

Only users with manage:AiAgent on an agent can link it. If the Slack user lacks that permission on every agent or isn’t linked to a Lightdash account, no channel binding is created. If your organization needs the configured channel list to be a strict allowlist, an admin can turn off automatic channel linking in the Slack integration settings.