Slack Data Ingestion

Turn your Slack conversations into AI knowledge. Import support threads, engineering discussions, and decision logs so your Guru can answer questions based on real team conversations.

Why Ingest Slack Data?

Capture Tribal Knowledge

Answers buried in Slack threads become searchable knowledge

Trusted User Filtering

Only index threads answered by experts or senior team members

Keyword Filtering

Include or exclude threads based on specific words

Auto-Sync

Backfill jobs automatically import new conversations on a schedule

What Gets Indexed

Content Type	What’s Included
Threads	Full thread conversations with all replies
Messages	Message content from selected channels
Files	Files shared in channels (images, documents, etc.)
Time Range	Filter by date range (custom or predefined)
Filtering	Include/exclude by keywords or trusted users

Setup

Step 1: Create a Slack App

Create New App

Go to Slack API Apps and click Create New App
Select From scratch
Enter a name (e.g., “Gurubase Backfill”)
Choose your Slack workspace
Click Create App

Add Bot Permissions

Go to OAuth & Permissions → Bot Token Scopes and add:

Scope	Purpose
`channels:history`	Read public channel messages
`groups:history`	Read private channel messages
`channels:join`	Join public channels
`channels:read`	Get public channel names
`groups:read`	Get private channel names
`files:read`	Read files shared in channels

Install to Workspace

Go to Install App page
Click Install to [Your Workspace]
Complete the OAuth flow
Copy the Bot User OAuth Token (starts with xoxb-)

Step 2: Connect to Gurubase

Navigate to Slack Integration

Go to Gurubase Dashboard → Select your Guru → Integrations → Ingestions → Slack

Enter Bot Token

Paste your Bot User OAuth Token and click Connect

Gurubase slack ingestion before installation

Gurubase slack ingestion after installation

Create Backfill Job

Go to your Guru’s Settings → Add → Slack to configure a backfill job

Configuring a Backfill Job

Setting	Description
Channel ID	The Slack channel to index (see below for how to find it)
Time Range	Custom date range or predefined (last 7 days, 30 days, etc.)
Buffer Days	Number of days to skip from the end of the time range (default: 3). Avoids indexing threads still being actively discussed. Set to 0 to index everything up to now.
Trusted User IDs	Only index threads answered by these users
Include Words	Only index threads containing these keywords
Exclude Words	Skip threads containing these keywords

Public vs Private Channels

Public channels work out of the box. The bot automatically joins the channel when you create a backfill job. Private channels require an extra step: you must manually invite the bot to the channel before creating the backfill job. In Slack, open the private channel and type:

/invite @YourBotName

Replace @YourBotName with the name of your Slack app (e.g., @Gurubase Backfill). Without this, the bot cannot access the channel’s message history.

Make sure your Slack app has the groups:history and groups:read scopes. These are required for reading private channel messages and metadata.

Finding a Channel ID

Right-click on a channel → View channel details → The Channel ID is shown at the bottom of the modal.

Finding a User ID

Open Profile

Open a DM with the user → Click their name → Click View full profile

Copy ID

In the profile sidebar, click the three dots (⋮) → Copy member ID

Use trusted user filtering to only index threads where senior engineers or support leads provided answers — this ensures higher quality knowledge.

Next Steps

Slack Bot

Deploy Gurubase as a Slack bot for your team

Confluence Ingestion

Import Confluence pages

Jira Ingestion

Import Jira issues

Data Sources

Add more knowledge sources

Get Started

Guides

Integrations