OpenClaw
Caso de usoIntermedio15 min

How to Build a Slack Daily Digest Bot with OpenClaw

Set up an automated Slack daily digest workflow using OpenClaw skills: Slack integration for message collection, AI summarization, and cron scheduling for daily delivery.

Última actualización: 2026-03-31

Skills necesarios

Slack
Recomendado

Enviar y leer mensajes de Slack, gestionar canales.

Ver Guía
Summarize
Recomendado

Resumir URLs, PDFs, videos y documentos.

Cron Creator
Recomendado

Crear expresiones cron desde lenguaje natural.

What You'll Build

An automated daily digest system that:

  1. Collects messages from your Slack channels throughout the day
  2. Summarizes conversations using AI to extract key points, decisions, and action items
  3. Delivers a digest at a scheduled time every day
  4. Runs automatically via cron scheduling — set it and forget it

This workflow is perfect for team leads, remote workers, or anyone who needs to stay informed without reading every message.

Why a Daily Digest

Real-time Slack notifications create a constant stream of interruptions. Every ping pulls you out of focused work, and studies show it takes an average of 23 minutes to fully regain concentration after a context switch. Over a typical workday, that adds up to hours of lost productivity.

A daily digest follows a batch processing approach to communication. Instead of reacting to each message as it arrives, you receive a single, structured summary at a time you choose. This eliminates notification fatigue — that overwhelmed feeling when dozens of unread channels pile up — and replaces it with a calm, predictable information flow.

The cognitive load difference is significant. Scanning 150 individual messages across 10 channels requires constant mental effort: filtering noise, tracking threads, remembering context. A well-structured digest compresses that into a 2-minute read, organized by importance. You stay fully informed about decisions, blockers, and action items without the anxiety of an overflowing sidebar.

This approach works especially well for managers, executives, and cross-functional contributors who need awareness across many channels but don't need to participate in every conversation in real time.

Prerequisites

  • OpenClaw installed and configured
  • Slack workspace with admin or app installation permissions
  • Slack Bot Token with channels:history, channels:read, and chat:write scopes
  • Node.js 18+

Step 1: Install the Required Skills

bash
# 1. Slack integration
npx clawhub@latest install slack

# 2. AI summarization
npx clawhub@latest install summarize

# 3. Cron scheduling
npx clawhub@latest install cron

Step 2: Configure Slack Integration

Create a Slack App

  1. Go to api.slack.com/apps and create a new app
  2. Under OAuth & Permissions, add these Bot Token Scopes:
    • channels:history — read channel messages
    • channels:read — list channels
    • chat:write — post digest messages
  3. Install the app to your workspace
  4. Copy the Bot User OAuth Token (starts with xoxb-)

Configure the Skill

Set your Slack token in OpenClaw:

bash
# The skill will prompt for configuration on first use
clawhub inspect slack

Step 3: Configure the Summarizer

The Summarize skill works with any text input. For the daily digest use case, you'll want to configure it for:

  • Output format: structured bullet points with sections
  • Focus areas: decisions, action items, announcements, questions
  • Length: concise (200-400 words per channel)

Step 4: Set Up the Cron Schedule

Create a daily cron job that runs the digest workflow:

bash
# Schedule for every weekday at 6:00 PM
# Cron Creator understands natural language

The cron job will:

  1. Fetch messages from configured channels (last 24 hours)
  2. Pass them through the Summarize skill
  3. Format the output as a structured digest
  4. Post to your designated digest channel

Step 5: Test Your Digest

Before relying on the cron schedule, run the workflow manually to verify everything works:

  1. Check that Slack connection is active
  2. Verify message fetching returns expected content
  3. Confirm summarization produces useful output
  4. Validate that the digest posts to the correct channel

Customization Options

Multi-Channel Digest

Monitor multiple channels and group summaries by channel:

  • #engineering — technical discussions and decisions
  • #product — feature requests and roadmap updates
  • #incidents — production issues and resolutions
  • #general — company-wide announcements

Priority Filtering

Configure the summarizer to highlight:

  • Messages with reactions (👀, ✅, 🚨)
  • Messages mentioning specific keywords
  • Threads with high reply counts
  • Messages from specific users (leadership, on-call)

Multiple Digest Schedules

Set up different schedules for different needs:

  • Morning brief (8:00 AM) — overnight activity summary
  • End-of-day digest (6:00 PM) — full day summary
  • Weekly roundup (Friday 4:00 PM) — week-in-review

Advanced: Conditional Digests

Not every day needs a digest. You can set up smart triggers so the system only sends a summary when it matters.

Skip Weekends and Holidays

Configure your cron schedule to run only on weekdays, and maintain a holiday list to suppress digests on company-wide days off. The cron skill supports expressions like 0 18 * * 1-5 for weekday-only execution. For holidays, add a simple date check at the start of your workflow that exits early if the current date matches your holiday calendar.

Urgency Detection

Set up keyword-based alerts that bypass the daily schedule entirely. If messages contain terms like "outage," "P0," "security incident," or "rollback," the system can send an immediate mini-digest instead of waiting for the scheduled time. This gives you the best of both worlds: batch processing for routine updates and real-time alerts for critical events.

Activity Threshold

Configure a minimum message count before a digest is generated. If a channel had fewer than 3 messages in 24 hours, there's little value in summarizing it. The workflow can check message volume first and skip channels — or the entire digest — when activity is below your threshold.

Keyword-Based Filtering

Define keyword groups to surface specific topics. For example, tag messages mentioning "deploy," "release," or "ship" under a Releases section, and messages mentioning "bug," "crash," or "error" under an Issues section. This adds a layer of intelligent categorization on top of the AI summarization.

Digest Templates for Different Roles

Different roles need different information from the same channels. You can create multiple digest configurations, each tailored to a specific audience.

Engineering Lead

🔧 Engineering Digest — March 31, 2026

BLOCKERS (2)
• Auth service rate limiting in staging — @chen investigating, needs DevOps input
• CI pipeline failing on integration tests — flaky test in payments module

PULL REQUESTS (5 merged, 3 open)
• Merged: GraphQL migration for mobile API (#1842), cache invalidation fix (#1839)
• Needs review: Database index optimization (#1845) — open 2 days

DEPLOYMENTS
• Production deploy v2.3.12 at 2:30 PM — successful, no rollbacks
• Staging deploy v2.4.0-beta.3 at 4:00 PM — 2 failing smoke tests

TECHNICAL DECISIONS
• Approved: Move to connection pooling for PostgreSQL (RFC-0047)
• Under discussion: Adopt OpenTelemetry for distributed tracing

Product Manager

📦 Product Digest — March 31, 2026

FEATURE DISCUSSIONS
• Mobile onboarding redesign — 3 design options shared, team leaning toward Option B
• Enterprise SSO — customer feedback from Acme Corp integrated into requirements
• API rate limiting — developer community requesting higher free-tier limits

CUSTOMER FEEDBACK (via #support and #feedback)
• 4 requests for CSV export in reporting dashboard
• Positive feedback on new search filters from 2 enterprise accounts
• Bug report: date picker not working in Safari (ticket created)

DECISIONS MADE
• v2.4 feature freeze confirmed for April 3
• Q2 OKR draft due by April 7 — all PMs to submit

UPCOMING
• Design review scheduled for April 2 at 10:00 AM

Executive

📊 Executive Brief — March 31, 2026

KEY METRICS
• Active users: 12,847 (up 3.2% week-over-week)
• API uptime: 99.97% (SLA target: 99.9%)
• Open support tickets: 23 (down from 31 yesterday)

INCIDENTS
• One resolved incident: database connection pool exhaustion (45 min downtime)
• Root cause identified, fix deployed — no customer data affected

STRATEGIC DECISIONS
• Engineering approved PostgreSQL connection pooling migration
• v2.4 feature freeze set for April 3 — on track for April 15 release

ITEMS NEEDING ATTENTION
• Enterprise pricing model needs Finance input — blocking 2 sales conversations
• Q2 hiring plan: 3 engineering roles approved, job descriptions pending

Sample Digest Output

Here's what a typical daily digest looks like:

📋 Daily Digest — March 31, 2026

🔧 #engineering (12 messages)
• Decision: Migrating from REST to GraphQL for the mobile API (approved by @sarah)
• Action Item: @mike to update API docs by Thursday
• Discussion: Performance benchmarks for the new cache layer — results pending

📦 #product (8 messages)
• Announcement: v2.4 feature freeze starts April 3
• Request: 3 new feature requests tagged for Q2 planning
• Question: Pricing model for enterprise tier — needs input from @finance

🚨 #incidents (2 messages)
• Resolved: Database connection pool exhaustion (10:30 AM - 11:15 AM)
• No open incidents

Weekly Roundup Format

A broader view for end-of-week summaries:

📋 Weekly Roundup — March 25–31, 2026

TOP HIGHLIGHTS
• GraphQL migration approved and implementation started
• v2.3.12 shipped with cache layer improvements — 40% faster API responses
• 2 new enterprise customers onboarded

BY THE NUMBERS
• 87 messages across 4 channels
• 6 decisions made, 12 action items created
• 3 incidents (all resolved, avg resolution: 38 min)

CARRIED OVER TO NEXT WEEK
• Enterprise pricing model — awaiting Finance review
• OpenTelemetry RFC — needs 2 more approvals
• Mobile onboarding redesign — final design review Tuesday

Project-Focused Digest

When you need updates scoped to a specific initiative:

📋 Project Digest: Mobile App v3.0 — March 31, 2026

PROGRESS
• Authentication flow implementation complete (PR #1842 merged)
• Push notification service — 80% complete, integration tests passing
• Offline mode — design spec approved, development starting April 2

BLOCKERS
• Third-party SDK compatibility issue with iOS 18 — vendor contacted
• Design assets for onboarding screens delayed until April 3

TEAM UPDATES
• @alex out April 1–3 (PTO) — @jordan covering push notifications
• Sprint review moved to April 4 at 2:00 PM

Incident-Only Digest

For on-call teams and reliability-focused stakeholders:

🚨 Incident Digest — March 31, 2026

ACTIVE INCIDENTS: 0

RESOLVED TODAY: 1
• INC-2847: Database connection pool exhaustion
  - Duration: 10:30 AM – 11:15 AM (45 minutes)
  - Impact: 12% of API requests returned 503 errors
  - Root cause: Connection leak in new batch processing job
  - Fix: Connection pool limit increased, leak patched in PR #1840
  - Follow-up: Add connection pool monitoring alert (due April 2)

7-DAY TREND
• Total incidents: 3 (down from 5 previous week)
• Mean time to resolution: 38 minutes
• SLA compliance: 99.97%

Troubleshooting

Messages not being fetched

  • Verify your bot token has channels:history scope
  • Ensure the bot is a member of the channels you want to monitor
  • Check that the channel IDs are correct (use channels:read to list)

Summarization quality is poor

  • Increase the context window by fetching more message history
  • Add focus instructions to the summarizer configuration
  • Filter out bot messages and automated notifications before summarizing

Cron job not triggering

  • Verify your OpenClaw instance is running
  • Check cron job status with clawhub list
  • Ensure system timezone matches your expected schedule

Preguntas Frecuentes

Yes, the workflow is platform-agnostic at its core. Replace the Slack skill with the Discord skill by running `clawhub install discord`. The Summarize and Cron Creator skills work identically regardless of the message source. You'll just need to provide a Discord bot token with the appropriate permissions (`Read Message History`, `Send Messages`) and configure the channel IDs for your Discord server.

Free Slack plans limit message history to 90 days, while paid plans offer unlimited history. The digest skill fetches messages within your plan's retention window, so on a free plan, you can still run daily digests without issue since you're only looking back 24 hours. If you're building weekly or monthly roundups, keep in mind that the 90-day limit applies. For teams on free plans considering longer-term summaries, archiving digests separately provides a workaround.

The cron job runs locally on the machine hosting your OpenClaw instance. If that machine is off or asleep at the scheduled time, the job won't execute and there's no built-in retry mechanism. For reliable, always-on operation, run OpenClaw on a server, VPS, or cloud instance that stays online 24/7. Services like a $5/month VPS or a spare Raspberry Pi work well for this purpose.

The default workflow posts the digest to a Slack channel, but you have several options for email delivery. You can enable Slack's built-in email notification feature to forward messages from the digest channel to your inbox. Alternatively, add an email skill to the workflow (`clawhub install email`) to send the digest directly via SMTP. This approach also lets you send digests to people who aren't in your Slack workspace, like external stakeholders or executives who prefer email.

Configure the summarizer to redact known sensitive patterns such as API keys, passwords, tokens, and personally identifiable information. You can define regex patterns for redaction in the summarizer configuration. Beyond redaction, restrict which channels are included in the digest — exclude channels like `#hr-confidential` or `#legal` entirely. For additional security, post digests to a private channel with a restricted membership list rather than a public one.

Set up multiple cron schedules targeting different time zones so each group receives the digest at a convenient local time. For example, schedule one digest at 6:00 PM EST and another at 6:00 PM CET. Each schedule can cover the same channels but deliver to region-specific digest channels. Alternatively, use a single digest time that falls within overlapping business hours — like 10:00 AM UTC — and let team members check it when they start their day.

Absolutely. The simplest approach is to use a weekday-only cron expression like `0 18 * * 1-5`, which runs Monday through Friday and skips Saturday and Sunday. For company holidays, maintain a holiday date list in your workflow configuration. The workflow checks the current date against this list before running and exits early if it's a holiday. You can also integrate with a public holiday API if your team spans multiple countries with different holiday calendars.

Yes, since digests are posted to a Slack channel, they're automatically searchable through Slack's built-in search. For more structured archiving, add a step to your workflow that saves each digest to a file — Markdown or JSON — in a designated directory or cloud storage bucket. Over time, this creates a searchable archive of team activity. Some teams pipe digests into Notion, Confluence, or a shared Google Drive folder for long-term reference and auditing purposes.

You can connect your workflow to a calendar API (Google Calendar, Outlook) to check for specific events before running. For example, skip the digest on company all-hands days when everyone is in sync already, or on team offsite days when Slack activity doesn't reflect actual work. Add a calendar check step at the beginning of your workflow that looks for events tagged with a specific keyword like "no-digest." This keeps the system flexible — you control which calendar events suppress the digest without changing the cron schedule.

The digest posts to a Slack channel, so channel membership controls who sees it. Create a dedicated channel like `#daily-digest` and invite only the people who should receive it. For more granular control, set up multiple digest channels with different audience configurations — one for engineering leads, one for product managers, one for executives — each with its own template and channel sources. You can also use Slack's notification preferences per channel, so individuals can mute the digest channel on days they don't need it without unsubscribing entirely.

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