> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://help.nops.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Clara Slack Agent

> Ask Clara about cloud costs and usage in Slack — @mentions, DMs, and scheduled reports powered by your live nOps data.

## Overview

**Clara** is nOps’s FinOps assistant. In the web app you can use [Ask Clara](/clara/clara-chat), the [dashboard](/platform/dashboard), and [canvases](/clara/canvas). With the **Clara Slack agent**, your team can ask cost and usage questions **where they already work** — in Slack channels, threads, and direct messages.

This is not a one-way alert feed. Clara is **fully conversational**: ask a follow-up, request a breakdown by tag or account, or drill into an anomaly in the same thread. Clara reasons over your **live** cloud cost data (the same intelligence that powers nOps) and replies in seconds.

<Tip>
  This is different from one-way report delivery. The Slack agent uses OAuth and Slack's Events API so your team can **start** conversations with Clara, not only receive pushes. For pushing reports and scheduled results *to* channels, see [Slack & Teams delivery](/platform/slack-and-teams) and [Notifications](/platform/notifications).
</Tip>

***

## What you can ask

Mention **@Clara** in a channel (where the bot is added) or send Clara a **DM**. Examples:

| Theme       | Example prompt                                                  |
| ----------- | --------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Spend       | *"Break down our AWS spend last month by service and account."* |
| Anomalies   | *"Why did our bill go up 12% this week?"*                       |
| Commitments | *"What's our savings plan utilization right now?"*              |
| Resources   | *"Top 10 most expensive RDS instances this month."*             |
| Trends      | *"How has our Lambda spend changed quarter over quarter?"*      |

Clara uses your live data on each request — not a fixed export. Follow-ups in the **same thread** keep context (filters and time ranges you already set).

***

## Scheduled reports in Slack

You can ask Clara to deliver recurring insights on a schedule, in natural language — without building a report in the dashboard first.

Examples:

* *"Give me a daily breakdown of AI service costs by account."*
* *"Every Monday, summarize our savings plan utilization and top waste opportunities."*

Clara runs the analysis against **live data** at delivery time. To change or stop a schedule, reply in the same thread (for example *"Stop the daily AI cost report"* or *"Change that to weekly instead."*).

| Use case                 | Example                                                    |
| ------------------------ | ---------------------------------------------------------- |
| Daily AI cost tracking   | Flag day-over-day growth above a threshold                 |
| Weekly commitment health | Effective savings rate and commitments expiring in 30 days |
| Post-deploy watch        | Track an account against the prior week’s baseline         |
| Monthly team summaries   | Per-team spend vs. budget on the first of the month        |

***

## Security

* **Workspace-scoped:** An nOps administrator connects Slack once; the install is bound to your nOps **organization**.
* **Identity:** Users must map to your nOps organization. If Clara cannot resolve a Slack user to a valid nOps identity, it will not return cost and usage data.
* **Permissions:** Each request is checked against the same cloud data access rules as the web app.

***

## Enable Clara in Slack

<Steps>
  <Step title="Sign in to nOps">
    Open [clara.nops.io](https://clara.nops.io) and sign in with an account that can manage your organization.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Open Plugins">
    Go to **Settings → Organization Settings → Plugins**.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Connect your workspace">
    In **Clara Slack Agent**, turn on **Enable Clara in Slack**, then click **Add Clara to Slack** (or **Reconnect Slack**) and complete the OAuth flow.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Start asking in Slack">
    @mention Clara in a channel or DM Clara. Add the app to channels where the whole team should see answers.
  </Step>
</Steps>

Setup usually takes a few minutes. You need permission to manage the Slack agent in nOps (typically an administrator).

***

## Who benefits

| Audience                 | How Slack helps                                                                            |
| ------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **Engineering**          | Cost context during incidents, deploys, and capacity planning without opening another tool |
| **FinOps**               | Fewer ad-hoc *"what did we spend on X?"* interruptions; Clara handles routine lookups      |
| **Managers**             | Team-level spend in standup channels without dashboard context switches                    |
| **Finance / leadership** | Quick budget answers in planning conversations already in Slack                            |

***

## Clara Slack vs Clara MCP

|              | **Clara Slack agent**                | **[Clara MCP](/plugins/clara-mcp)**           |
| ------------ | ------------------------------------ | --------------------------------------------- |
| **Where**    | Slack (channels, threads, DMs)       | Cursor, Claude, or another MCP client         |
| **Best for** | Team-wide questions in Slack         | Individual workflows in your daily AI harness |
| **Setup**    | **Settings → Plugins** + Slack OAuth | Plugin zip or MCP config + OAuth once         |

Many teams use **both**: Slack for broad collaboration, and MCP in the tools engineers use to build and operate systems.

***

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Clara MCP" icon="plug" href="/plugins/clara-mcp">
    Connect Cursor, Claude, or your harness to nOps datasets and commitment analysis.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Notifications" icon="bell" href="/platform/notifications">
    Email and scheduled canvas delivery — separate from the conversational Slack agent.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Ask Clara" icon="sparkles" href="/clara/clara-chat">
    Use Clara inside nOps with charts and canvases in the same session.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Organizations" icon="building" href="/platform/organizations">
    Organization settings, SSO, and audit logs.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>