Sweat the small stuff

Bot names

Pick a name that is representative or your brand and what the bot does, being careful not to violate trademarks and other brand names.

Your bot's username must follow our regular username guidelines: lowercase letters, numbers, underscores, dashes, periods, and less than 21 characters in length).

Some Slack users prefer to see full names rather than usernames. In this case, the bot's "full name" will inherit the name of your app.

Naming your slash commands

Choose a descriptive name for your slash command, but make it easy to remember and type.

If your application provides printing services, then /print makes sense, but avoid using copyrighted names that you do not own like /HP or /canon (unless you work there, in which case it's a great idea).

If your service is known by its name, a command with your company's name in it (like /lyft and /uber to request car sharing service) is an easy way for Slack users to remember how to invoke your slash commands.

You'll need to balance your careful command naming with knowing that slash commands aren't namespaced. Be mindful and choose a name that won't override or be overridden by another developer's carefully named command.

Pick a name that is simple, easy to remember and connects directly with a purpose. Users shouldn't have to explore the slash command drop down every time they go to do that thing.

Colors

There are a couple of different places where you can customize colors used in your app:

Message attachment bar

The first is within messages themselves — colorful bars guarding the edge of messages and their components definitely make them more distinctive.

Use color bars a few ways: Utilize your brand color to complement your app's avatar to more clearly brand your messages. Your service may already associate specific colors with workflow transition types and objects — prioritize clarity and legibility by using the colors that will most clearly resonate with our common users (e.g. green for confirmation, red for cancelling actions, colors that are legible and not overbright).

When you're not harmonizing with your brand, we suggest using the default light gray. If you're looking for just a little more distinction, consider using optional color values good, warning, or danger.

App Profile background color

The second place where you can choose a custom color is in your app's profile background. In Slack, if somebody clicks on your app's name, we'll display a little profile card with a brief description of your app. The top section containing your app's name and icon will be displayed with your custom background color. It should pair nicely with the colors in your icon, and there should be enough contrast that you can read the white text on top.

Logo assets

• Pick a compelling logo that will look great, adaptively rendering at 512x512px on desktop, and 36x36px on mobile. Illustrations work better than photos.
• Don't include lots of text that will be hard to read at a small size
• Don't round the corners — we'll do it for you!