🔐 Why Guide Requests Slack Permissions
When you connect Slack to Guide, we request a small set of permissions (called Slack scopes) to power specific features that streamline your interview coordination workflows.
These scopes allow Guide to:
Automatically create candidate-specific Slack channels
Post structured interview schedules
Invite relevant recruiters, coordinators, and interviewers
View conversation metadata (but not message content) in relevant channels or DMs
✅ Slack Scopes Requested by Guide (and Why)
Here’s a breakdown of the Slack permissions Guide requests and what each one enables:
channels:manage
Why it’s needed: Allows Guide to create and manage public channels programmatically.
Used for:
Creating candidate-specific Slack channels
Naming channels automatically
Posting the schedule and kickoff message
Inviting interviewers, recruiters, and coordinators
groups:write
Why it’s needed: Allows Guide to create and manage private channels (Slack calls these “groups”) that it has been added to.
Used for:
Creating private candidate channels, when preferred over public ones
Managing participants for visibility-sensitive hiring processes
chat:write
Why it’s needed: Allows Guide to send messages as @guide.
Used for:
Posting structured messages with candidate info and interview schedules
Notifying stakeholders via Slack when scheduling actions occur
users:read
Why it’s needed: Allows Guide to see who’s in your Slack workspace.
Used for:
Matching interviewers, recruiters, and coordinators to their Slack accounts
Auto-inviting the right people to candidate channels
users:read.email
Why it’s needed:
Allows Guide to view user email addresses in your Slack directory.
Used for:
Matching Slack users with Guide/ATS users based on email
Ensuring the correct participants are invited to channels
channels:read
Why it’s needed: Lets Guide view metadata about public channels (not content).
Used for:
Avoiding name collisions with existing channels
Determining if a candidate channel already exists
groups:read
Why it’s needed: Lets Guide view metadata about private channels (not content) that it has been added to.
Used for:
Same as above, but for private channels
Ensures smoother participation management
mpim:read
Why it’s needed: Allows Guide to view basic info about multi-person DMs it’s added to (not content).
Used for:
Future use-case: understanding existing group DM activity in order to resolve scheduling conflicts and interviewer availability
im:write
Why it’s needed: Allows Guide to start direct messages or group DMs.
Used for:
DMing reminders to interviewers about upcoming interviews
🔍 What Guide Can See
✅ Basic channel info
✅ Slack user names and emails
✅ Metadata about conversations Guide is added to
🚫 Guide cannot read actual message content unless it is mentioned directly in a conversation
🚫 Guide cannot access private channels or DMs unless explicitly invited
🧠 Can We Limit These Permissions?
These scopes are required to enable features like:
One-click channel creation
Auto-invite of relevant stakeholders
Posting detailed schedules into Slack
If your organization restricts any of these permissions, some Slack functionality in Guide may be limited or unavailable — such as:
Creating channels automatically
Posting structured messages
Inviting the full interview team
📎 Next Steps
If you’re unsure about enabling these scopes:
Start with a sandbox workspace to test behavior
Reach out to your Guide CSM for a live walkthrough or demo
Let us know if you’d like fine-grained controls (e.g. using public channels only)
📥 Still Have Questions?
We’re happy to walk through your Slack permissions in detail or discuss any concerns with your IT/security team.