Tengu Bot: Slack threads, meetings and screen recordings become quests

At an agency, a ticket often starts as a Slack message. A client posts a bug in a shared channel. A PM says "can someone look at this?" A developer answers in the thread, and the thread scrolls away. Two days later nobody remembers whether it became a ticket, who has it, or whether it shipped.

Tengu Bot lives in those channels. Mention it in a thread and it turns the thread into a quest on the right list, finds the quest that already exists, answers questions about it, or updates it. On Studio it also joins your calls and reads screen recordings, and turns what it hears and sees into proposed quests.

Tengu Bot is on the Board and Studio plans.

Setup

An admin or someone in Operations opens Admin > Tengu Bot and installs it into your Slack workspace. It is its own Slack app, named Tengu Bot, with the slash command /tengu.

Then you route channels to lists:

• Each channel routes to one Tengu workspace, and to one of its lists or several (up to 10). #acme-support goes to the Acme support list. #northwind-dev can go to both Northwind's web list and its iOS list.
• One Slack workspace can connect to several Tengu workspaces. A channel never belongs to more than one Tengu workspace.
• Routes point at lists that live in Tengu, including lists you imported.

What it does on Board

Turns threads into quests

Mention @Tengu Bot in a thread: "make this a ticket for Ana, due Friday". The bot reads the whole thread, writes a quest with a clear title and description, and posts the link back in the thread. If the thread describes several problems, it can propose several quests. It looks for a quest that already covers the same thing before it makes a new one.

If the channel has more than one list, say which one: "make this a ticket in iOS". If you don't, the bot asks which list, with a button for each, and you can answer by typing the list's name in the thread.

You can also start from the command line: /tengu new Checkout fails for saved cards. In a channel with several lists, put the list first: /tengu new iOS: Checkout fails for saved cards.

Finds and reads quests

"Is there already a ticket for the login redirect?" /tengu find login redirect works too. Ask about a quest and it answers from the quest itself: its status, who has it, the latest comments.

Short questions get short answers. Ask where things stand, or to compare a few quests, and it writes a longer answer: a one-line summary first, then short sections with bullets.

In a channel, the bot only reads the lists that channel is routed to, and only what the person asking is allowed to see. It never brings another client's quests into the wrong channel.

Updates and comments, with approval

"Move this to in review and set it to high priority." For changes to an existing quest, the bot shows what will change, before and after, with Approve and Reject buttons. Nothing changes until the person who asked, or a linked member allowed to make that change, approves it. Comments go straight onto the quest.

Link previews and help

Paste a Tengu quest link in Slack and the bot unfurls it into a preview, so people can see what it is without opening it. /tengu help lists what it can do in that channel.

Who it acts as

This part matters more than any feature, so here it is plainly.

• Writes run as the linked person. Each member links their Slack account once, from Link your Slack account in their own Settings (or with /tengu link in Slack), and Slack itself confirms it's them with Sign in with Slack. From then on, the bot writes with their permissions. Where a channel has several lists, it acts as them only on the lists they can see: it won't change quests on the others for them.
• No email matching. Tengu never decides who you are by comparing a Slack email to a Tengu email. Emails get reused, shared and mistyped. Only Slack's own word on who signed in counts.
• People who haven't linked, including clients in a shared channel, can still ask for tickets. Those run as the person who set up the channel, and the ticket says "Requested by <name> in Slack".
• Authorship is honest. Whoever asked, the author shows as Tengu Bot, so nobody mistakes a ticket or comment for something a person typed in Tengu.
• No XP from the bot. Nobody earns quest-giver XP for quests the bot creates.

What Studio adds

Meetings

Paste a Meet, Zoom or Teams link with /tengu join <link>, or mention the bot with the link in a thread. Only a linked teammate who can see the channel's first list can send it. Tengu Bot joins the call as a participant named Tengu Bot. When the call ends, it posts a summary in the thread and proposes quests for the action items it heard, each with Yes and No. Only the ones you accept become quests, on the first list the channel is routed to. Before proposing one, it checks all of the channel's lists for a quest that already covers the item.

Screen recordings into quests

A client records their screen while clicking through the bug and sends it over. A teammate who linked their Slack account posts the recording in a thread in the team's own routed channel and mentions the bot. It watches the recording, writes down what happened and what went wrong, and proposes a quest. When the recording shows several problems, it proposes a parent quest with a subtask for each. The quest links back to the Slack message rather than copying the video. In a channel with several lists, name the list when you mention the bot, or it asks which one once it has watched the recording.

Your own tools, over MCP

Connect any MCP server under Admin › Tengu Bot › Connections, such as your app's Supabase project, Intercom, Linear or Notion, and turn it on in the channels that need it. The bot then looks things up there while it answers: "how many orders failed yesterday?" or "what are customers saying about the new checkout?" Each project's channel gets that project's database, so the answers stay scoped to the work in front of the team. Supabase connects in its read-only mode. Tools the server marks read-only can run on their own; anything that changes something is off until you set it to ask first, and then it runs only after the person who asked presses Run in Slack.

Only for your team

Recordings and connections work for linked teammates who can see the channel's first list, in channels only your team reads. In a channel a client can read (shared with another company through Slack Connect, or with a Slack guest in it), Tengu Bot treats everyone as a client: anyone can still file and find tickets, but the bot won't watch recordings, use your connections, or show Team only comments there. Each list routed to such a channel counts as shared with its clients from when the channel became one a client can read, or from when the list was added to it if that came later, so the team's comments on those quests start Team only from then.

Fair use

Tengu Bot's AI runs on our side, unlike Run in Claude Code, which runs on your own Claude account. Every paid plan includes $2 of AI each month per seat, in one pool for the team. The usage page shows what the team used: owners and admins see the cost, Operations sees the counts. The Free plan does not include Tengu Bot.

What it is not

Tengu Bot is not a coding agent. It writes and finds tickets. When a quest needs code, Run in Claude Code takes it from there, on the same board, or from Slack when you ask Tengu Bot to run Claude Code on the ticket.

It also does not watch people. It reads the threads it is mentioned in and the channels you route to it, for the purpose of making and finding work.