title: "Migrating Your Slack Workspace to the CNCF Cloud-Native Workspace"#

date: 2025-05-29
description: "A comprehensive guide for CNCF project maintainers on migrating their existing Slack workspaces to the CNCF cloud-native workspace"

Migrating Your Slack Workspace to the CNCF Cloud-Native Workspace#

Overview#

The CNCF cloud-native Slack workspace is owned and operated by the CNCF in partnership with the Linux Foundation and Salesforce. It serves as the primary Slack home for all CNCF projects and their communities, providing a stable, well-resourced, and community-connected environment.

Benefits of the Cloud-Native Workspace#

• No operational costs for projects — The cost of operating the workspace is covered by an agreement between the Linux Foundation and Salesforce, so there are no fees passed on to individual projects or their communities.
• Unrestricted message history — Workspace message history is not restricted by plan, meaning your community can access the full history of your channels without hitting a message cap.
• Dedicated administration — Workspace administration is handled by the CNCF Projects Team, who can be contacted through the #slack-admin-support channel, the #slack-faq channel, or via the CNCF Service Desk.
• Safer community environment — Messages flagged via the built-in "Report To Slack" mechanism are routed to the CNCF Projects Team for review and deletion where appropriate.
• Community at scale — Moving to the cloud-native workspace places your project and community at the heart of a massive community of cloud native projects and brings you closer to CNCF Staff.

A Note on Chat Platform Choice#

CNCF does not mandate which chat platform projects use — individual projects are free to choose their own communication tools. However, for projects that choose to use Slack, migration to the CNCF cloud-native workspace is required. Projects using other platforms (such as Discord or Matrix) are not affected by this guide.

Key Channels in the Cloud-Native Workspace#

Once your project has joined the cloud-native Slack workspace, the following channels are particularly valuable for project maintainers:

Your project will also have its own dedicated channels in the workspace, prefixed with your project name (e.g., #myproject-dev, #myproject-users).

Getting Started#

Before beginning the migration process, ensure that you and key members of your team have joined the cloud-native workspace.

Once you've registered, introduce yourself in #maintainers-circle and connect with your CNCF Projects Team partner, who will guide you through the migration steps.

Migration Planning#

A successful migration requires both communicating clearly with your community and performing the necessary technical preparation. Work closely with your partner in the CNCF Projects Team throughout this process.

Community Communication#

Let your community know about the upcoming migration as early as possible. The specific migration dates and times can be coordinated with your CNCF Projects Team partner to minimise disruption.

When communicating the migration to your community members, make sure to convey:

• Invitations will be sent — Community members who are not already members of the cloud-native workspace will be sent invitations to join.
• Channel naming will change — Channel names in the new workspace will be prefixed with your project name (for example, #dev becomes #myproject-dev). This is by design and avoids naming conflicts with the hundreds of other CNCF projects in the workspace.
• Migration timeline — Share the agreed migration date and any key actions members need to take, such as accepting workspace invitations before the old workspace is decommissioned.

Consider posting migration announcements in all active channels, your project mailing list, and any other community touchpoints.

Technical Preparation#

Before the migration takes place, complete the following steps in coordination with your CNCF Projects Team partner:

1. Identify channels to migrate — Review your existing workspace and decide which public channels should be migrated to the cloud-native workspace. Not all channels may need to be carried over.
2. Rename source channels with a project prefix — Ensure that channel names on your source workspace are renamed to include your project's name as a prefix (e.g., rename #dev to #myproject-dev). This is a critical step to avoid name clashes with other CNCF projects already in the cloud-native workspace.
3. Request a Slack Export — Ask a workspace Owner on your source workspace to perform a standard Slack Export. This export contains the content of public channels and is the primary mechanism for carrying over channel history.

Backing Up Your Data#

The CNCF Slack backup guide recommends slackdump as the preferred tool for this task 1. It is a command-line tool that stores backup data locally — no fees or third-party online storage are involved, making it suitable even for confidential private channels.

Installing slackdump#

macOS (via Homebrew):

brew install slackdump

Other operating systems: Download the latest release from the slackdump releases page, unpack the archive, and run the executable directly 2.

Note: On Windows and macOS you may encounter an "Unknown developer" warning. On Windows, click "More information" and select "Run Anyway". On macOS 15 Sequoia and later, navigate to System Preferences → Security and Privacy → General and click "Open Anyway" after the first launch attempt 3.

Running a Backup#

1. Launch slackdump and use the wizard to authenticate against your source workspace.
2. Select Export (not "Dump") from the menu.
3. Retrieve the Channel ID for each private channel or DM you want to back up by opening the channel details within Slack (click the three dots ... and choose "Open channel details" or "Open conversation details").
4. Export each channel using its Channel ID. The standard storage type is recommended 4.
5. slackdump will produce a zip archive in your home directory.

Viewing Backup Files#

You can view your exported data with the built-in viewer:

slackdump view <zip or directory>

Alternatively, the following third-party tools are supported 5:

• SlackLogViewer — A fast and powerful viewer written in C++, works with Export files.
• Slackdump2Html — A Python application that converts Slack dumps into browsable static HTML.
• slack-export-viewer — A well-known viewer that supports displaying files saved in Standard file mode.

For the full step-by-step walkthrough, refer to the CNCF Slack backup guide 6.

Compliance and Code of Conduct#

All activity within the CNCF cloud-native Slack workspace is governed by the CNCF Code of Conduct in addition to the CNCF Slack Guidelines 7.

Reporting Inappropriate Content#

The CNCF Slack workspace includes an integrated reporting tool. To report a message 8:

1. Hover over the message you wish to report.
2. Click the "..." (More actions) icon that appears to the right of the message.
3. Select "Report message".

Reports submitted through this mechanism are routed to the CNCF Projects Team for review and action.

Consequences of Policy Violations#

Unacceptable behaviour from any community member will not be tolerated. If a community member engages in behaviour that violates the Slack Guidelines or the CNCF Code of Conduct, CNCF staff may take any action deemed appropriate, up to and including 9:

• Deleting unacceptable content
• Removing a user from a channel
• Deactivating an account

Additional Policies#

The following policy documents provide further context on acceptable behaviour and community standards in the CNCF workspace:

• CNCF Code of Conduct
• CNCF Slack Guidelines 10

Getting Help#

The CNCF Projects Team and the broader maintainer community are available to help you throughout the migration process. Use the following resources:

Don't hesitate to reach out early in your planning process — the CNCF Projects Team is experienced in guiding projects through this migration and can help you avoid common pitfalls.