April is here, and the energy of spring is in full swing. 
The days are longer, the air is lighter, and there’s a sense that everything is coming into bloom. It’s the season of growth and not just in your garden. Whether you’re nurturing a side project or tending to a full-scale app, April is the perfect time to plant new ideas and watch them take root. We’ve been busy cultivating too: fresh updates, new developer tools, and features designed to help you build something that truly flourishes. 
Because the best apps, like the best gardens, thrive when given the right conditions to grow. 
Deploy Agents to Slack Faster with Vercel Skills
We introduced Vercel Skills, a new integration that lets developers deploy AI agents directly to Slack using the Vercel AI SDK. Vercel Skills packages tools, instructions, and knowledge into reusable building blocks that agents can invoke natively within Slack. Rather than wiring up custom deployment pipelines, developers can scaffold and ship production-ready agents to Slack in minutes. The result is a dramatically faster path from prototype to deployment, with Slack as the natural agentic interface where work already happens.
Slack CLI x Slack API – Your Interface for the Future
Our very own Rosanne Ussery walks us through how the Slack CLI and Slack API work together as a developer’s most powerful combo for building on the Slack Platform. The CLI handles the scaffolding, authentication, testing, and deployment so developers can skip the configuration busywork and focus on what actually matters, building great apps. From setting up a sandbox environment to running slack login and iterating rapidly with access to the full Slack API surface, the two tools complement each other across the entire development lifecycle. Whether you’re building your first app or adding AI integrations, this pairing is designed to get you from idea to production faster.
Make your AI agent think out loud in Slack
We introduced Thinking Steps, a new set of Block Kit elements and streaming APIs that lets developers surface an AI agent’s reasoning process live in conversation. Instead of a silent spinner followed by a fully-formed response, users can now see tool calls, task execution, and decisions unfold in real time. Two display modes give you flexibility: Plan mode shows a structured task overview upfront, while Timeline mode streams steps sequentially as they happen. Built on the same Chat Streaming APIs, Thinking Steps pairs with other blocks to show both what an agent is doing and what it’s saying, making AI in Slack feel less like a black box and more like a genuine collaboration!
Give users the power to choose: introducing optional scopes for Slack apps
Optional scopes — a new way for developers to designate certain app permissions as optional during installation. Instead of asking users to accept every scope upfront or abandon the install entirely, apps can now distinguish between required permissions and optional ones. Users see a clearer, more respectful install experience and developers get higher install rates and more trust. On the admin side, workspace admins can control which optional scopes are available to their users, giving organizations fine-grained governance without blocking productivity.
Fresh features that just dropped 🚀
- Email connectors: Your inbox is now in Slack. Yes, really.
We just connected Gmail and Microsoft Outlook to Enterprise Search so you can search your email right from Slack, no tab-switching required.
Here’s what that looks like in practice:
- Ask Slackbot “summarize my unread emails from the last week” and actually get an answer
- See email results cited in AI-powered search results alongside everything else you search
- Browse a dedicated Google Mail or Outlook tab in search results,
Admins can flip this on in org settings today. Email is another place where important context lives and connecting it to Slack can make things easier.
- slack.dev just got a glow-up.
The redesigned slack.dev homepage is live and it’s a big deal for the Slack developer community! Think cleaner design, better navigation, and improved discoverability so developers can find what they need faster. All rooted in real user feedback and research.
This is just the beginning. A full site overhaul is in the works, so consider this the opening act of a much bigger refresh.
Go take a look → slack.dev
- Slackbot just became your sales rep and support agent.
Slack CRM is officially launch-ready and it’s built for small businesses that want to move fast without juggling a dozen tools. Powered by Slackbot, it brings sales and service workflows right into Slack, with deep Salesforce integration baked in.
Here’s what you get:
- Slackbot handles the busywork — meeting prep, account research, record updates, email drafting. Just ask.
- Full sales pipeline management — contacts, accounts, leads, and opportunities, all from Slack
- Automated lead capture — Web-to-Lead, channel alerts, and Slackbot-assisted outreach without lifting a finger
- Case management in-channel — Email-to-Case, Slackbot summaries, and faster resolutions
- Email from Slack — reach contacts, respond to cases, send attachments, all without switching apps
- Zero-click activity logging — Einstein Activity Capture syncs emails and calendar activity automatically
🎧Slack Dev Huddles — Episode 4 Live on LinkedIn!
Our next livestream episode is all about getting the most out of Slackbot as an engineer. We’ll explore tips and tricks for working with Slackbot intentionally — from asking better questions to using it as a built-in thinking partner right inside Slack.
See how a few small habits can make Slackbot dramatically more useful in your day-to-day work — whether you’re searching for context across channels, summarizing long threads, or drafting quick responses without breaking your flow. We’ll share practical techniques you can start using immediately.
Tune in to learn, build, and experiment with us!
📅 Next episode: April 21st, 2026 • 12:00PM PT / 3:00PM ET
We’re always blown away by what our community creates—and we want to highlight *you* next! Whether it’s a handy tool, a step-by-step guide, or an insightful article, if you’re proud of it, we want to hear all about it.
📬 Send us a message at technewsletter@slack-corp.com and share what you’ve been working on.
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