</Card>

</CardGroup>

## Choosing Socket Mode or HTTP Request URLs

Both transports are production-ready and reach feature parity for messaging, slash commands, App Home, and interactivity. Pick by deployment shape, not features.

| Concern | Socket Mode (default) | HTTP Request URLs |

| ---------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |

| Public Gateway URL | Not required | Required (DNS, TLS, reverse proxy or tunnel) |

| Outbound network | Outbound WSS to `wss-primary.slack.com` must be reachable | No outbound WS; inbound HTTPS only |

| Tokens needed | Bot token (`xoxb-...`) + App-Level Token (`xapp-...`) with `connections:write` | Bot token (`xoxb-...`) + Signing Secret |

| Dev laptop / behind firewall | Works as-is | Needs a public tunnel (ngrok, Cloudflare Tunnel, Tailscale Funnel) or staging Gateway |

| Horizontal scaling | One Socket Mode session per app per host; multiple Gateways need separate Slack apps | Stateless POST handler; multiple Gateway replicas can share one app behind a load balancer |

| Multi-account on one Gateway | Supported; each account opens its own WS | Supported; each account needs a unique `webhookPath` (default `/slack/events`) so registrations do not collide |

| Slash command transport | Delivered over the WS connection; `slash_commands[].url` is ignored | Slack POSTs to `slash_commands[].url`; field is required for the command to dispatch |

| Request signing | Not used (auth is the App-Level Token) | Slack signs every request; OpenClaw verifies with `signingSecret` |

| Recovery on connection drop | Slack SDK auto-reconnects; the gateway's pong-timeout transport tuning applies | No persistent connection to drop; retries are per-request from Slack |

<Note>

**Pick Socket Mode** for single-Gateway hosts, dev laptops, and on-prem networks that can reach `*.slack.com` outbound but cannot accept inbound HTTPS.

**Pick HTTP Request URLs** when running multiple Gateway replicas behind a load balancer, when outbound WSS is blocked but inbound HTTPS is allowed, or when you already terminate Slack webhooks at a reverse proxy.

</Note>

## Quick setup

<Tabs>

**Recommended** matches the bundled Slack plugin's full feature set; **Minimal** drops files, reactions, pins, group-DM (`mpim:*`), `emoji:read`, and `usergroups:read` for restrictive workspaces. See [Manifest and scope checklist](#manifest-and-scope-checklist) for per-scope rationale.

</Note>

<Info>

The three URL fields (`slash_commands[].url`, `event_subscriptions.request_url`, and `interactivity.request_url` / `message_menu_options_url`) all point at the same OpenClaw endpoint. Slack's manifest schema requires them named separately, but OpenClaw routes by payload type so a single `webhookPath` (default `/slack/events`) is enough. Slash commands without `slash_commands[].url` will silently no-op in HTTP mode.

</Info>

After Slack creates the app:

- **Basic Information → App Credentials**: copy the **Signing Secret** for request verification.