As part of the ongoing development of Sentry's Slack integration, we’re updating the Sentry Slack App to request additional permissions.
These permissions will be used for new features that let you interact with Seer (Sentry's AI agent) in Slack.
Q: Why is Sentry asking for additional permissions
A: The newly required permissions are used to allow our bot to act as an AI Agent in Slack, and handle @mentions.
The new optional permissions will allow the bot to gather context for conversations from threads in private and public channels. The bot will still work without these permissions (channels:history, groups:history), but will only be able to respond using the data from the prompting message (rather than the whole thread)
Q: What can I do to protect my Slack instance if I accept these permissions?
A: Consider the following guidance:
- Only add the Sentry bot to public/private channels you are open to have Sentry access.
- Sentry cannot access public/private channels that it has not been added to.
- Feel free to review our open source code for how we leverage your Slack workspaces.
Q: Will Sentry store additional details about my Slack usage?
A: Sentry will log debugging data related to Slack usage (e.g. Slack User IDs, Channel IDs, thread IDs) but avoid the sensitive content like messages and channel names. Messages directed at Seer via @mention may be logged for evaluation and future improvement.
Q: Is it common for developer tools that integrate with Slack to ask for these permissions?
A: Yes, Linear, Claude, Cursor Slack are some examples of common bots that leverage these permissions for similar experiences in Slack.
Q: What if I don’t want to accept the new permission?
A: If you don’t accept the new permissions, your Slack app will continue to function as it always has, our changes are backwards compatible.
Public documentation about features of the Slack integration may not apply unless you grant the new permissions.
Q: If I uninstall the Sentry Slack integration can I modify the requested permissions for a fresh install?
A: If you uninstall the app, a re-installation will only succeed if you grant these permissions.
Q: I have not accepted the new permission, how will Sentry's Slack integration work?
A: If you have not granted the new optional permissions, Seer Agent will not be able to read threads when providing insights
If you do not grant the new required permissions, you won’t be able to @mention the bot, and conversate with it via DMs.
You can read more about GitHub permissions in our developer documentation: https://develop.sentry.dev/integrations/slack/#scopes