Slack Notify - GitHub Action

A GitHub Action to send a message to a Slack channel.

Usage

You can use this action after any other action. Here is an example setup of this action:

1. Create a .github/workflows/slack-notify.yml file in your GitHub repo.
2. Add the following code to the slack-notify.yml file.

on: push
name: Slack Notification Demo
jobs:
  slackNotification:
    name: Slack Notification
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v4
    - name: Slack Notification
      uses: step-security/action-slack-notify@v2
      env:
        SLACK_WEBHOOK: ${{ secrets.SLACK_WEBHOOK }}

3. Create SLACK_WEBHOOK secret using GitHub Action's Secret. You can generate a Slack incoming webhook token from here.

Environment Variables

By default, action is designed to run with minimal configuration but you can alter Slack notification using following environment variables:

Variable	Default	Purpose
SLACK_CHANNEL	Set during Slack webhook creation	Specify Slack channel in which message needs to be sent
SLACK_USERNAME	rtBot	Custom Slack Username sending the message. Does not need to be a "real" username.
SLACK_MSG_AUTHOR	$GITHUB_ACTOR (The person who triggered action).	GitHub username of the person who has triggered the action. In case you want to modify it, please specify correct GitHub username.
SLACK_ICON		User/Bot icon shown with Slack message. It uses the URL supplied to this env variable to display the icon in slack message.
SLACK_ICON_EMOJI	-	User/Bot icon shown with Slack message, in case you do not wish to add a URL for slack icon as above, you can set slack emoji in this env variable. Example value: :bell: or any other valid slack emoji.
SLACK_COLOR	good (green)	You can pass ${{ job.status }} for automatic coloring or an RGB value like #efefef which would change color on left side vertical line of Slack message. Other valid values for this field are: success, cancelled or failure.
SLACK_LINK_NAMES	-	If set to true, enable mention in Slack message.
SLACK_MESSAGE	Generated from git commit message.	The main Slack message in attachment. It is advised not to override this.
SLACK_TITLE	Message	Title to use before main Slack message.
SLACK_FOOTER	Powered By step-security's GitHub Actions Library	Slack message footer.
MSG_MINIMAL	-	If set to true, removes: Ref, Event, Actions URL and Commit from the message. You can optionally whitelist any of these 4 removed values by passing it comma separated to the variable instead of true. (ex: MSG_MINIMAL: event or MSG_MINIMAL: ref,actions url, etc.)
SLACKIFY_MARKDOWN	-	If set to true, it will convert markdown to slack format. (ex: *bold* to bold) Note: This only works for custom messages and not for the default message generated by the action. Credits: slackify-markdown-action
SLACK_THREAD_TS	-	If you want to send message in a thread, you can pass the timestamp of the parent message to this variable. You can get the timestamp of the parent message from the message URL in Slack. (ex: SLACK_THREAD_TS: 1586130833.000100)
SLACK_TOKEN	-	If you want to send message to a channel using a slack token. You will need to pass a channel in order to send messages using token, requiring a value for SLACK_CHANNEL. Note that in case both webhook url and token are provided, webhook url will be prioritized.
SLACK_MESSAGE_ON_SUCCESS	-	If set, will send the provided message instead of the default message when the passed status (through SLACK_COLOR) is success.
SLACK_MESSAGE_ON_FAILURE	-	If set, will send the provided message instead of the default message when the passed status (through SLACK_COLOR) is failure.
SLACK_MESSAGE_ON_CANCEL	-	If set, will send the provided message instead of the default message when the passed status (through SLACK_COLOR) is cancelled.
SLACK_CUSTOM_PAYLOAD	-	If you want to send a custom payload to slack, you can pass it as a string to this variable. This will override all other variables and send the custom payload to slack. Example: SLACK_CUSTOM_PAYLOAD: '{"text": "Hello, World!"}', Note: This payload should be in JSON format, and is not validated by the action.
SLACK_FILE_UPLOAD	-	If you want to upload a file to slack, you can pass the file path to this variable. Example: SLACK_FILE_UPLOAD: /path/to/file.txt. Note: This file should be present in the repository, or github workspace. Otherwise, should be accessable in the container the action is running in.
ENABLE_ESCAPES	-	If set to true, will enable backslash escape sequences such as \n, \t, etc. in the message. Note: This only works for custom messages and not for the default message generated by the action.

You can see the action block with all variables as below:

    - name: Slack Notification
      uses: step-security/action-slack-notify@v2
      env:
        SLACK_CHANNEL: general
        SLACK_COLOR: ${{ job.status }} # or a specific color like 'good' or '#ff00ff'
        SLACK_ICON: https://github.com/step-security.png?size=48
        SLACK_MESSAGE: 'Post Content :rocket:'
        SLACK_TITLE: Post Title
        SLACK_USERNAME: step-security
        SLACK_WEBHOOK: ${{ secrets.SLACK_WEBHOOK }}

Hashicorp Vault (Optional) (Deprecated)

This GitHub action supports Hashicorp Vault.

To enable Hashicorp Vault support, please define following GitHub secrets:

Variable	Purpose	Example Vaule
VAULT_ADDR	Vault server address	https://example.com:8200
VAULT_TOKEN	Vault token	s.gIX5MKov9TUp7iiIqhrP1HgN

You will need to change secrets line in slack-notify.yml file to look like below.

on: push
name: Slack Notification Demo
jobs:
  slackNotification:
    name: Slack Notification
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v4
    - name: Slack Notification
      uses: step-security/action-slack-notify@v2
      env:
        VAULT_ADDR: ${{ secrets.VAULT_ADDR }}
        VAULT_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.VAULT_TOKEN }}

GitHub action uses VAULT_TOKEN to connect to VAULT_ADDR to retrieve slack webhook from Vault.

In the Vault, the Slack webhook should be setup as field webhook on path secret/slack.

License

MIT © 2022 rtCamp Copyright (c) 2025 StepSecurity