Customize the chat bot
This guide shows you how to reshape the provider-side bot app without leaving Control Center.
Prerequisites
Section titled “Prerequisites”- The
owneroradminrole in the workspace - A connected provider. The Customize bot row only appears once the workspace is connected
- An app Control Center can manage. For Slack that means the connection holds an app configuration refresh token (
xoxe-…); if it does not, the row says so and stays disabled
What you can change
Section titled “What you can change”| Field | Meaning | Limit |
|---|---|---|
| App name | How the provider lists the app | 1–35 characters |
| Bot display name | What members type after @ |
1–80 characters |
| Description | One line the provider shows | 140 characters or fewer |
| Agent description | Shown above a DM with the bot | 300 characters or fewer |
| Slash command | The command members invoke, without the slash | Lowercased, a–z 0–9 _ - only, truncated at 32 characters |
| Direct messages | Whether the bot exposes the DM/agent experience | On or off |
Control Center validates the four text fields before calling the provider, so you get “the app name must be between 1 and 35 characters” instead of an opaque invalid_manifest from a server you cannot see. The command is not rejected but normalized: a leading slash is stripped, the rest is lowercased, anything outside a–z 0–9 _ - is dropped and an empty result falls back to cc.
Edit the bot
Section titled “Edit the bot”- Go to Settings → Workspace → General and scroll to the Chat bridges card
- On the provider block, click Customize bot
- The dialog opens on the app’s live values, read back from the provider — so a change someone made in Slack’s own UI is what you start from
- Edit what you need and save
Reading those live values costs a token rotation on Slack’s side, which is why the row is a deliberate click rather than something the page does on load.
The write overlays your changes onto the app’s current definition. Anything Control Center does not model — a second slash command you added in Slack, a workflow step, an unrelated setting — survives untouched. Scopes and events are merged in, never subtracted.
After saving, Control Center re-reads the bot’s identity so the name in settings matches the name in the chat app.
Reinstall when permissions change
Section titled “Reinstall when permissions change”When a save changes permissions, the dialog stays open and says “Slack changed the app’s permissions. Reinstall the app for them to take effect”, with a Reinstall app button that opens Slack’s install-on-team page for that app. In Slack that is Install App → Reinstall to Workspace.
Rename the slash command
Section titled “Rename the slash command”Change Slash command and save. The bridge then writes instructions using whatever command it was last invoked with, so the help text and link instructions follow the rename instead of naming a command that no longer exists.
Renaming does not break existing bridged threads: threads are keyed by conversation, not by command.
What Control Center will not change
Section titled “What Control Center will not change”- Structural settings. The transport (Socket Mode), the required scopes and the event subscriptions are asserted, not offered. An app that can be configured into silence from a settings screen is a support ticket, not a feature
- The bot’s icon. Only the provider’s own app settings can change it and the dialog says so
- The provider’s own feature migrations. An app already on Slack’s legacy assistant shape keeps it; this dialog edits a description, it does not migrate an app
Troubleshooting
Section titled “Troubleshooting”There is no Customize bot row at all
Section titled “There is no Customize bot row at all”The workspace is not connected yet. The row only appears once the provider block shows a live connection. See Set up Slack integration.
The Customize bot row is disabled
Section titled “The Customize bot row is disabled”The connection has no app-management credential — the row’s subtitle says “Control Center needs an app configuration token to edit the bot. Reconnect and include one.” For Slack, generate an app configuration token pair on api.slack.com/apps and reconnect with the refresh token filled in. This is expected for an app built by hand or created through Create in Slack, because Slack never reports which app it made.
“Control Center does not know which app to edit”
Section titled ““Control Center does not know which app to edit””The stored connection carries no app id — typically an app connected by hand before an id was recorded. Reconnect the workspace, or create the app from Control Center.
The bot’s new name has not appeared in chat
Section titled “The bot’s new name has not appeared in chat”Providers cache app metadata briefly. If the name is still stale after a minute, check whether the save asked you to reinstall the app.