Chat bridges: run coding tasks from Slack

The idea

Teams already discuss work in chat. A bridge lets that conversation drive the pipeline directly, without copying a request into another tool. DevFlow ships two: Slack, over the Events API, and Mattermost, over a WebSocket.

From mention to task

You mention the bot in a connected channel. It runs a read-only exploration of the code and replies in the thread. Answering go there creates the task.

Later replies in the same thread move it along. Approve, lgtm, ship it, a thumbs-up or a rocket approve the plan; go or start begin work; other replies answer the planner's questions.

Marking a task done from the thread uses the same path as the web app, so squash, push and pull request behave identically.

Setting it up

For Slack, the operator registers an app with six bot scopes, including app_mentions:read and chat:write. A workspace owner then connects it, stores the signing secret and lists the channel IDs. Every event is signature-verified, with a 5-minute replay window.

For Mattermost, the owner enters the server URL, a bot token, the team ID and channel IDs. The URL must be a public http or https address, and by default a Mattermost user must have a verified email to act.

Limits that apply

Only listed channels are handled: an event from a channel that is not on the list is dropped. A channel belongs to one workspace. Each workspace and author pair may send 15 inbound events per minute.

Notifications are separate

Outbound notices, such as plan ready, task done or an agent error, go through an incoming webhook. They need no bot connection at all, only the webhook address.