Messaging

What you can send

Sauna hears you in four places: DMs to Sauna, @Sauna in a channel, the assistant sidebar on the right, and slash commands. Threads are where sessions live.

• DM. Each new chat you start in the DM sidebar gets its own thread, and Sauna treats each of those as its own session. You can have many parallel conversations without them bleeding into each other.
• @Sauna in a channel. Put @Sauna in a top-level channel message. The whole thread is yours, reply without re-tagging. "Exclusive" thread.
• @Sauna in a reply. Mention Sauna in a reply to someone else's message. Each person who engages gets their own session in that thread. "Shared" thread. Everyone re-tags @Sauna each time.
• Thread continuation. Once you have a claimed thread, replies continue that session silently. No need to re-mention in your own exclusive thread.
• Skip a message. Start any reply with \ and Sauna drops it silently. Handy when you want to write in the thread without talking to Sauna.
• Assistant sidebar. Open the Sauna assistant panel (Slack's right-hand view). You get a welcome, "Sauna's warm, c'mon in. Type what's on your mind and let's get to work.", and four suggested prompts: Draft a reply, Analyze a document, Map out an implementation, Research something for me.
• Slash commands. /login, /logout, and /sauna (help). Work in channels and DMs, not inside threads.
• Attachments. Up to 25 MB per file. Voice clips transcribe before Sauna reads them, tagged as voice. iPhone HEIC photos convert to JPEG automatically. Everything else uploads as a file the agent can read. Over 25 MB comes back with a "file too large" note.
• Thread context. When Sauna joins an existing thread, it also sees the root message's text and files plus up to 20 prior replies.

What you get back

Sauna streams its replies into the same thread with a live Tasks panel. Generated files come back as Slack file uploads. When Sauna needs to take an action or connect another app, it drops a button into the message.

• Streamed replies. Sauna replies live, in place. Reasoning shows up as blockquoted italics; tool activity shows up as live task cards under a "Tasks" header.
• Mention in channels. The first chunk of a channel reply is prefixed with <@yourhandle> so the reply pings you. DMs and the assistant sidebar skip the ping.
• File uploads. Generated files come back via Slack's file-upload flow. Markdown artifacts up to 64 KB render to PDF first, so long docs are scrollable on a phone. Over 64 KB, the raw .md uploads instead.
• Inline approval button. When Sauna produces a doc with a built-in action (a label and a follow-up prompt), the doc renders inline with a single primary button under it. Click it and Sauna runs the prompt in the same session.
• Connect-app card. If Sauna needs an app you haven't wired up, it posts a Connect X card with an OAuth button. Complete the handshake in the browser; the next turn picks up where Sauna left off.
• Progress reactions. When you click the approval button, Sauna reacts :hourglass_flowing_sand: on the message while it works, then swaps to :white_check_mark: when the follow-up finishes.
• Assistant status. In DMs and the assistant sidebar, Slack shows "Thinking..." while Sauna is working. Cleared on reply.