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When an automation sends a Slack message, who does it appear to come from?

Last updated 2026-08-17 · Confidence: documented — Slack’s developer docs, help center, Marketplace listing, and Anthropic’s docs; how the Claude connector’s sends render is inferred, underlined.

The token behind the send decides the sender: bot tokens post as the app, user tokens post as you — and a user-token send is attributed exactly like a message you typed, so an as-you follow-up is possible, just not what most automations do by default.

Three identities, set by the token

Section titled “Three identities, set by the token”
  • The app itself. Bot tokens “are not tied to a user’s identity — they’re only tied to your app” (token types), and the message is delivered with the app’s own bot profile and name (sending messages).
  • A custom name and avatar. With the chat:write.customize scope an app sets username and icon_url per message (chat.postMessage) — cosmetic only; the sender is still the app.
  • You. “Write actions with user tokens are performed as if by the user themselves”: the message is “attributed to the user and show[s] their profile photo beside it”. Slack’s condition: it “should never be unexpected or surprising to a user that a message was posted on their behalf”.

Whether recipients can still spot an as-you send (an “app” marker in some surface) is unstated; send yourself one and look.

What the common tools do

Section titled “What the common tools do”
  • Workflow Builder: the workflow’s name “is what will show up when… the workflow posts a message in a channel or sends a direct message” (build a workflow).
  • @Claude in Slack: posts as the Claude app; Claude Tag runs it as “your organization’s shared identity, not as any member’s account” (Claude Code in Slack). - Claude’s Slack connector (chat, Cowork, desktop): the Claude Marketplace listing requests permission to “perform actions as you” — user-scoped, so sends should carry your name.

One structural tell: “Bot users cannot post to a direct message conversation between two users” (chat.postMessage) — an app messages you from its own DM. Landing a follow-up inside an existing person-to-person DM thread therefore requires a user-token send.

Who sent it and whether it pings are separate questions — a bot post can arrive silently either way; see Slack pings.

Q&A from calls

Section titled “Q&A from calls”

An assistant was told to draft a lesson and “send it to a colleague on Slack” — what does the colleague see? Through Claude’s connector the send is authorized as you, so it should arrive under your name and photo rather than a Claude badge — confirmed in one minute by having it message yourself.

Sources

Section titled “Sources”