How to use the official GitHub + Slack app

One of the easiest ways to get GitHub pull request notifications in 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

1. Install the app from the official GitHub website: https://slack.github.com/

2. Once you've installed the Slack app, it should prompt you to connect your GitHub account.

3. Important: If you want to use the app in a private channel, you need to invite it first by typing /invite @github in that channel. Without this, commands will silently fail.

Subscribe to a repository

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

Default and additional features

When you run /github subscribe your-org/your-repo, the following default features are subscribed automatically:

Reducing noise

If the notifications are too much, unsubscribe from specific features:

/github unsubscribe your-org/your-repo [feature]

Example: /github unsubscribe your-org/your-repo issues — this will stop issue notifications.

Adding more visibility

You can subscribe to additional features for more notifications:

/github subscribe your-org/your-repo [feature]

Example: /github subscribe your-org/your-repo comments — this will send notifications for new comments on issues and pull requests.

You can also subscribe to multiple features at once:

/github subscribe your-org/your-repo reviews comments

Available additional features:

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 pull requests within a specific repository

For 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 all pull requests in your organization

To get notifications for pull requests across your entire organization:

/github subscribe your-org

This subscribes the current Slack channel to notifications from all repositories within your organization.

A word of caution: Org-level subscriptions are a blunt instrument. You cannot unsubscribe from individual repos within an org-level subscription, and users have reported known limitations. For most teams, subscribing to specific repositories gives you much better control.

Filter by labels

You can filter notifications by labels to only get notified for matching pull requests and issues:

/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

Important label filter limitations:

• Only one label filter per repo subscription is supported at a time.
• Setting a new label filter replaces the previous one — they do not stack.
• Label filters apply to pulls, issues, comments, and reviews, but not to commits or branches.
• To remove a label filter: /github unsubscribe your-org/your-repo +label:"your-label"

Default pull request notification types

When you subscribe to pull requests, you'll get notifications for:

• New (opened) pull requests
• Merged pull requests
• Reopened pull requests
• Draft pull requests marked as "Ready for Review"

Understanding threading

By default, the GitHub Slack app groups all activity for a pull request into a single thread under the original notification message. This means comments and reviews will only appear inside the thread, not in the main channel.

If you want comments or reviews to also appear in the main channel, use the "channel" option:

/github subscribe your-org/your-repo reviews:"channel"
/github subscribe your-org/your-repo comments:"channel"

You can also manage threading preferences with /github settings.

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 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/your-repo +label:"urgent"

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

Useful commands reference

Here are some handy commands to manage your subscriptions:

Bonus: Link previews

Pasting any GitHub link in Slack will automatically generate a rich preview for pull requests, issues, code snippets (with line numbers), and comments — no extra setup needed. Just make sure link previews are enabled in your Slack workspace settings.

Enjoy the 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 ❤️