Slack #ask-hr on autopilot with Claude

"Is the 24th a holiday?" "Where's the expense form?" "Does parental leave cover adoption?"

Repeat questions like these aren't HR work. They're admin.

The answers already exist, in your handbook and in threads where you answered last time. So let Claude find them and write the reply. You stay the one who sends it.

Here are the two pieces:

→ The reply drafter. One prompt that finds open questions and drafts answers from your sources.

→ The schedule. A task that runs that prompt every hour, laptop closed.

1. Drafting replies from your handbook

Most answers are already written somewhere.

First, connect Slack to Claude: Settings, then Connectors, then Slack. Connect your handbook too, wherever it lives: Notion, Drive or Confluence. Make sure you're a member of #ask-hr, because Claude works in Slack as you. On a Claude Team or Enterprise plan, your admin may need to allow the connector first.

Open Claude and paste this. Change the three things in square brackets.

TASK: #ask-hr drafts

Every run:

1. Open the Slack channel [#ask-hr]. Read the messages from the last
  3 days, including threads.

2. Find the open questions. A message is open when:
  - it asks something: a question, or a request for help
  - nobody has replied in its thread, and nobody answered it in the
    channel right below it
  - it isn't from me, and it isn't from a bot
  - it's older than 10 minutes, so a colleague gets the chance to
    answer first
  Skip thank-yous, announcements and messages answered with an emoji
  by the HR team.

3. For each open question, look for the answer in this order:
  a. The handbook and policy pages in [Notion / Drive / Confluence:
     name the space or folder]. This is the source of truth.
  b. Earlier answers in [#ask-hr]. Search the channel's history for
     the same topic. Prefer the newest answer, and prefer answers
     written by the HR team.
  c. Nothing else. No general knowledge about how companies usually
     do it. No guessing.

4. Write a reply as a Slack draft in the question's thread.
  Never send. Never post. The draft:
  - answers in 1 to 4 short sentences, the answer first
  - links the handbook page or the earlier thread it came from
  - uses the person's first name and the language they wrote in
  - sounds like me: plain, friendly, no corporate phrases
  If sources disagree, or the newest source is older than 12 months,
  end the draft with: [CHECK: what to verify].
  If nothing answers the question, draft: "Good question, let me
  check and come back to you today." and mark it [NO SOURCE].

5. Don't draft, only flag, when the question is about: pay or one
  person's compensation, health or medical leave details, a complaint
  or conflict with a colleague or manager, harassment or
  discrimination, safety, a resignation or dismissal, legal or
  immigration matters, or another named employee. Those need a human
  from start to finish. If someone shares something personal in the
  channel, flag it so I can move the conversation to a DM.

6. If a thread already has a draft from an earlier run, leave it.
  Never write a second one.

7. End the run with a short summary: one line per question, a link to
  the thread, and a label: DRAFTED, CHECK, NO SOURCE or FLAGGED.
  If Slack refuses a draft, put the full suggested reply in the
  summary instead, so nothing gets lost.
  No open questions: say so in one line and stop.

Rules: drafts only, never send. Only public facts from the handbook
and the channel. Never mention one employee's situation in a reply to
another. Only run between [8:00 and 18:00, Monday to Friday, my time].

How it works. Claude reads the last three days of the channel and picks out questions nobody answered. It checks your handbook first, then earlier answers in the channel, newest first. Then it writes a short reply as a Slack draft in the question's thread, with a link to where the answer came from. When nothing answers the question, it says so instead of guessing.

No channel? Change step 1 to "Read my Slack direct messages from the last 3 days." Each draft then waits in that person's DM.

Run it once by hand before you schedule it. Read the drafts. If they don't sound like you, add a line about your tone to the prompt and run it again.

Drafts, never sends. Every reply waits in Slack under Drafts & Sent until you open it. A reply from HR is a promise, so you stay the one who makes it.

Sensitive questions stay with you. Pay, health, complaints, conflicts and anything about a named colleague get flagged, not drafted. Add your own topics to that list: a works council, a visa program, anything your company handles carefully.

2. Running it every hour

A prompt you have to remember to run is just one more task. So put it on a clock.

A scheduled task runs the prompt on a timer in the cloud, with your laptop closed. Cloud tasks run once an hour at most. For an HR channel that's enough: a reply within the hour beats the half day most questions wait today.

In a new Claude chat, paste the prompt and add this line on top:

Schedule this as a task that runs every hour, 8:00 to 18:00,
Monday to Friday, my time.

How it works. Claude creates the task and shows you the schedule to confirm. Press Run now once while you watch: that's where you approve its access to Slack. If later runs stop and wait for approval, open the task's settings and let it run Slack actions without asking. The prompt is what keeps those actions to drafts.

Two details worth knowing.

Every NO SOURCE is a handbook gap. Keep a list. Ten of those and you know which section to write next. And when a draft gives an old answer, fix the handbook, not just the draft. The next run gets it right.

Test with two questions. Slack may keep only one draft per conversation. If that happens, the run's summary carries the second reply in full, so nothing gets lost.

That holiday question? Next time, the answer is waiting in the thread when you open Slack.