Ask it and teach it, without leaving Slack.

Five steps

1. Check that Harbor is there

   In any channel, type the command on its own:

   slackCopy

   /harbor

   Harbor answers with how to use it, and only you see it. It reads nothing and costs nothing, so it is the quickest way to know the app is installed.

2. Ask a question

   slackCopy

   /harbor what is our deploy window?

   You see 🔎 Searching your team’s brain… at once, and the answer arrives under it a few seconds later. It is built only from what your team has approved, with a number like [#1] after every claim pointing at the fact behind it. If the brain does not know, it says so instead of guessing.

   To ask one Space only, put its name in brackets first:

   slackCopy

   /harbor [in Engineering] what is our deploy window?

3. Connect your account, the first time it asks

   Harbor answers as you, under your own access, so it has to know which Harbor member you are. It matches the confirmed email on your Slack profile. When that fails, the reply says so and gives you a Connect my Harbor account button.

   The button opens a page in your browser. It signs you in if you are not, and it names the Slack account, the Slack workspace and the Harbor account before you click anything. Click Connect, and Harbor finishes what you asked: the page says It is answering your question now or It is saving your message now. You do not send it again. Back to Slack takes you to the channel you were in.

   The link works once and lasts fifteen minutes. Slack guest accounts cannot connect, so a guest cannot ask or save.

4. Save something for your team

   When a decision is made in Slack, tell Harbor to keep it. There are three ways, and they all end in the same place:

   The three ways to save something to your team’s brain from Slack.

   Way	What you do	Where it works
   Type it	/harbor remember we deploy only on Tuesdays	Anywhere, a direct message included. Your own words, so they count as said by you.
   Tag Harbor	@Harbor remember we deploy only on Tuesdays	A channel Harbor is in. In a thread, @Harbor remember this saves the message the thread started with.
   Use the message menu	More actions → Remember in Harbor	Any message in a public channel, even one Harbor is not in. It saves that message whole.

   To pick the Space, start with it in brackets, the same as a question:

   slackCopy

   /harbor remember [in Engineering] staging resets every Sunday night

   Without a bracket, a save made in a channel an admin switched on in Sources goes to that channel’s Space. Anywhere else it waits in Review for someone to pick one. Anything longer than 1,500 characters is too long to save as one rule: say the rule itself in a sentence or two instead.

5. Read the reply

   You see 📌 Saving to your team’s brain… at once. A few seconds later, one of these arrives under it. When it went straight in:

   after @Harbor rememberonly you see this

   Saved to Engineering as a rule. Your team’s agents will use it from now on.
   > we deploy only on Tuesdays
   [ Undo ]  [ Open in Harbor ]

   Open in Harbor opens the rule you just saved. Undo takes it back, as long as nobody else has said the same thing and no reviewer has approved it. When it needs a person first, the reply names the reason:

   after /harbor rememberonly you see this

   Sent to Review in Engineering, because it has a link in it.
   > deploy notes live at https://wiki.example.com/deploys
   [ Undo ]  [ Open Review ]

   And if your team already has it, Harbor does not add it twice. It says Your team’s brain already knows this, or, for a message Harbor had already read from the channel, Your team’s brain already has this message with the rule it keeps.

Why a save waits in Review

What you save follows the same review rules as anything an agent records. The reply always says which one applied:

When the Slack message changes

A rule keeps the words it was saved with. Harbor never rewrites one on its own, because whether a rule should change is a person’s call. Instead it tells the people who decide:

• A message you saved with Remember is edited. The rule’s owner and the people who can approve rules in its Space get The Slack message behind a rule was edited in Notifications, with the rule quoted and a link straight to it.
• A message behind a live rule is deleted. The same people get The Slack message behind a rule was deleted. The rule stays live until one of them decides.
• A message is deleted while its save waits in Review. It leaves Review, because the words it quotes are gone, unless it is part of a conflict someone is already deciding.

What Harbor does not do in Slack

• Talk in public. Every reply goes to the person who asked, tagged or saved. Nobody else in the channel sees it.
• Read private channels or direct messages. The message menu refuses there. Your own words with /harbor remember work anywhere, because they are yours to give.
• Read a channel because it was added there. Adding Harbor to a channel lets it hear a tag. What it reads is switched on channel by channel, by an admin, in Sources.
• Save a tag twice. In a channel Harbor reads, a message that tags it is saved once, by Remember, and the channel reader skips it.