How to use the official Github + Slack app

One of the easiest ways to get Github pull request notifications on your Slack Channel is by installing the Github + Slack app.

Today we're going to show you how to make the most out of it.

P.S If you prefer watching a video, here's a link

Install the Github + Slack app

• All you need to do is install the app from the official Github website: https://slack.github.com/

• Once you've installed the Slack app. It should prompt you to connect your Github account.

Get to know the commands

• The most useful command is: /github help
  • This will show you the list of available commands
• To subscribe to Pull requests:
  • Go to the target slack channel of your choice
  • Execute this command on that channel: /github subscribe your-org/your-repo
  • That slack channel will now be subscribed to that repo's pull requests.
• And there you have it, as easy as pie! 🥧

Additional customization

• When you execute this command: /github subscribe your-org/your-repo, the following features will be subscribed to by default:
  • issues
  • pulls
  • commits
  • releases
  • deployments
• So, say you're finding the notifications a bit too much, you can unsubscribe to specific triggers with the following command: /github unsubscribe your-org/your-repo [feature]
  • Example: /github unsubscribe your-org/your-repo issues - this will prevent issues from notifying.
• If you want more notifications and more visibility, you can subscribe to more triggers with the following command: /github subscribe your-org/your-repo [feature]
  • Example: /github subscribe your-org/your-repo comments - this will give you additional notifications for new comments on that pull request
  • Available triggers:
    • branches
    • comments
    • discussions
    • reviews
    • workflows

✨ And that should do it!

How to set it up for pull request notifications

Now let's dive deeper into configuring pull request notifications specifically. The GitHub Slack app offers several ways to fine-tune your pull request notifications based on your team's needs.

Subscribe to all pull requests in your organization

To get notifications for pull requests across your entire organization:

/github subscribe your-org

This will subscribe the current Slack channel to pull request notifications from all repositories within your organization. This is particularly useful for:

• Small teams that want visibility across all projects
• Organizations where most repositories are relevant to the team
• Getting a high-level overview of all development activity

Subscribe to pull requests within a specific repository

For more targeted notifications, subscribe to pull requests from a specific repository:

/github subscribe your-org/your-repo pulls

This command will only send notifications for pull requests in the specified repository. This is ideal when:

• You want to focus on specific projects
• Different teams work on different repositories
• You want to reduce notification noise

Subscribe to pull requests with specific labels

You can filter pull requests by labels to get notifications only for those that match your criteria:

/github subscribe your-org/your-repo +label:"your-label"

For example:

• /github subscribe your-org/your-repo +label:"ready-for-review" - Get notified only for PRs marked as ready for review
• /github subscribe your-org/your-repo +label:"urgent" - Get notified only for urgent pull requests
• /github subscribe your-org/your-repo +label:"frontend" - Get notified only for frontend-related pull requests

Managing pull request notification types

By default, when you subscribe to pull requests, you'll get notifications for:

• New pull requests
• Merged pull requests
• Draft pull requests marked as "Ready for Review"

You can also subscribe to additional pull request activities:

/github subscribe your-org/your-repo reviews

This will notify you when:

• Pull request reviews are submitted
• Review comments are added
• Review status changes

Unsubscribing from pull request notifications

If you find the notifications too overwhelming, you can unsubscribe from pull requests:

/github unsubscribe your-org/your-repo pulls

Or unsubscribe from specific pull request activities:

/github unsubscribe your-org/your-repo reviews

Pro tip: Channel-specific configurations

Different Slack channels can have different notification settings. For example:

• #frontend-team channel: /github subscribe your-org/frontend-repo +label:"frontend"
• #backend-team channel: /github subscribe your-org/backend-repo +label:"backend"
• #urgent-reviews channel: /github subscribe your-org +label:"urgent"

This allows you to create specialized channels for different types of pull request notifications based on your team's workflow.

Enjoy the sweet sweet ding from those Slack notifications 😁

Bonus section ⭐️:

You can skip all of the steps above and just install this free Slack app called PullNotifier.

All you need to do is:

1. Install it in the Slack app marketplace on the Slack UI or just log in through their website directly.
2. Connect Github & Slack
3. And boom 💥! You now have slack notifications for all pull requests on ALL of your repos.

The cool thing is you can also configure different Slack channels for each repository you have (very useful for large teams).

Here's a video on what PullNotifier does:

  That's it for today! Hope you found the content here useful ❤️