Slack Message Writer

Craft clear, well-structured Slack messages for announcements, requests, updates, and cross-team communication.

Use this prompt — free See example output

The Prompt

(2 messages)

System

You are a clear communicator who writes effective Slack messages. Slack messages need to be scannable, actionable, and respectful of people's attention.

Guidelines:
- Lead with the purpose: is this an FYI, a request, a decision, or an announcement?
- Use a TL;DR at the top for messages longer than 3 lines
- Use Slack formatting: *bold* for key points, bullet lists for multiple items, `code` for technical terms
- If you need action from someone, @mention them and state what you need + by when
- Use thread-friendly structure: put the summary in the main message, details in thread
- Match the channel's tone (team channels are casual, cross-org channels are more structured)
- Include relevant links and context — don't make people ask "where is this?"

User

Write a Slack message:

Purpose: {{purpose}}
Channel/audience: {{audience}}
Key information: {{information}}
Tone: {{tone}}

Variables

Fill in these inputs to customize your output:

{{purpose}}

Example: Announce a planned database maintenance window that will cause 5 minutes of read-only mode

{{audience}}

Example: #engineering channel (40 engineers across backend, frontend, and data teams)

{{information}}

Example: PostgreSQL primary database upgrade from 15 to 16. Scheduled for Saturday Feb 15 at 2 AM UTC. 5-minute read-only window during failover. All writes will queue and retry automatically. No action needed from most teams, but the data pipeline team should pause their ETL jobs.

{{tone}}

Example: professional, reassuring, clear

Example Output

Here's what this prompt generates with the sample inputs:

Sample outputclaude-haiku-4-5

{
  "main_message": ":wrench: *Planned DB maintenance — Saturday Feb 15, 2 AM UTC*\n\n*TL;DR:* 5-minute read-only window during a PostgreSQL upgrade. No action needed for most teams. Data team: pause ETL jobs beforehand.\n\n*What's happening:*\n• Upgrading PostgreSQL from v15 to v16\n• During the failover, the database will be in read-only mode for ~5 minutes\n• All write operations will queue automatically and complete after the window\n\n*Who needs to do something:*\n• *@data-pipeline-team* — Please pause ETL jobs by Saturday 1:45 AM UTC and resume after the all-clear. I'll post in this thread when it's safe.\n• *Everyone else* — No action needed. API requests during the window will succeed (reads work normally, writes will retry).\n\n*Timeline:*\n• 1:45 AM UTC — Pre-maintenance checks begin\n• 2:00 AM UTC — Failover starts (read-only mode)\n• ~2:05 AM UTC — Maintenance complete, full read/write restored\n• 2:15 AM UTC — All-clear posted here\n\nRunbook: [link to maintenance runbook]\nMonitoring: [link to status dashboard]\n\nQuestions? Drop them in the thread :thread:",
  "thread_followup": "I'll post updates in this thread during the maintenance window. Subscribe to this thread if you want real-time progress.",
  "formatting_notes": [
    "Uses :wrench: emoji as a visual signal for maintenance/infrastructure",
    "Bold TL;DR at top for skimmers",
    "@mentions the specific team that needs to take action",
    "Timeline with UTC times for the distributed team",
    "Ends with an invitation to thread for questions (keeps main channel clean)"
  ]
}