We’re integrating Slack with n8n.io to automate workflows, but ran into a concern: To enable the Slack integration, the app must be authorized by the Workspace Owner.
Our worry is that once authorized, all workflows using Slack might operate with the Workspace Owner’s level of access—potentially exposing sensitive Slack content to any employee building workflows in n8n.
Is this a valid concern?
Does the Slack app inherit the full privileges of the authorizing user?
Can employees misuse this integration to access private channels or DMs?
Would love to hear how others have handled this securely. Thanks in advance!
Your question is pretty valid and it’s good that you are spotting an important risk early.
When you authorize a Slack app, it’s a critical security consideration to understand what permissions you’re granting and how they’re managed. Only approve the absolute minimum scopes required for your workflows to function.
No. It only gets the scopes explicitly granted during authorization. The fact that the authorizer is Workspace Owner doesn’t automatically mean “full Slack privileges”.
Yes, misuse is possible, but it depends on the scopes you’ve approved. Only if the app has been granted scopes that allow access to message histories (channels:history, groups:history, im:history). If you keep scopes minimal (e.g., chat:write), they cannot.
This is the key vulnerability. The risk isn’t from the Workspace Owner’s specific account but from the broad permissions granted to the app itself, which anyone using that n8n integration could leverage.
