Notify a Slack channel of a paused workflow

Cloud

When a workflow includes a manual approval job, CircleCI holds the workflow until someone approves it. With the CircleCI Slack integration, your team is notified in Slack when a workflow is waiting for approval. Anyone who has linked their Slack identity can then approve the held workflow directly from Slack.

This page shows how to set up notifications for a paused workflow using the Slack Integration. The integration is installed once at the organization level and configured per project.

For more information on manual approval, see the Holding a Workflow for Manual Approval section of the Using Workflows to Orchestrate Jobs page.

Prerequisites

The CircleCI Slack app is installed for your organization, and the project is linked to a Slack channel. See Install the CircleCI Slack App and link a project to a channel.
To approve a held workflow directly from Slack, link your Slack identity. See Link Your Slack Identity.

1. Add an approval job to your workflow

To pause a workflow for manual approval, add a job with type: approval to your workflow. The following workflow runs test, holds for approval, then runs deploy. The jobs run sequentially using the requires key.

workflows:
  test-hold-deploy:
    jobs:
      - test
      - pause_workflow:
          requires:
            - test
          type: approval
      - deploy:
          requires:
            - pause_workflow

When this workflow reaches pause_workflow, CircleCI holds it until the job is approved. For more details about orchestrating jobs with sequential and manual approval workflows, see the Using Workflows to Orchestrate Jobs page.

2. Confirm Slack notifications for the project

Notifications are managed from your project settings in the CircleCI web app. Any organization member with write access to the project can configure them.

Link the project to a Slack channel if you have not already. For steps, see the Slack Integration guide.
Review the notification events for the project from Project settings Slack Notifications. See Update Notification Preferences.

When a workflow for the project is held for approval, CircleCI sends a notification to the linked Slack channel.

3. Approve a held workflow from Slack

After you link your Slack identity, you can approve a held workflow directly from the Slack notification.

Link your Slack identity for the organization. See Link Your Slack Identity.
When a workflow is held for approval, open the notification in your linked Slack channel.
Approve the held workflow from the notification to let the workflow continue.

Next steps

Learn more about the Slack Integration, including linking your identity, getting tagged in notifications, and managing the integration for your organization.
Read the Using Workflows to Orchestrate Jobs page for more on approval jobs and workflow orchestration.

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