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🔒Thread Lock Power

Close threads with intention, not silence

Long Slack threads tend to peter out — decisions live in someone's memory, the conclusion buried under emojis. Viably's Thread Lock power forces a clean ending: react with 🔒, capture the outcome, optionally assign a follow-up, and Viably will politely deflect any further messages.

How it works

  1. 1

    React with 🔒 anywhere in the thread

    Any teammate can lock a thread by adding a 🔒 reaction to any message in it — usually the message that contains the resolution.

  2. 2

    A short modal asks for the outcome

    Viably opens a Block Kit modal with three fields: the outcome (a sentence or two), an optional follow-up owner, and an optional reminder time. Skip any field you don't need.

  3. 3

    The thread is locked & summarised in-place

    Viably posts a clean summary card to the thread — outcome, follow-up owner, reminder time — and marks the thread as locked. The summary becomes the canonical answer for future searchers.

  4. 4

    Late repliers get a gentle nudge

    If someone posts into a locked thread, Viably privately DMs them: "This thread was locked — see the summary above, or start a fresh thread if there's more to discuss." The original thread stays writable; nobody is silenced.

The lock modal

Three fields. None mandatory — pick the ones that matter for this thread.
FieldPurpose
OutcomeA short summary of what was decided. Pinned to the thread as Viably's reply.
Follow-up ownerOptionally tag the person responsible for the next step. Recorded in the Locked Threads dashboard.
Reminder timeOptional. Viably schedules a reminder for the owner — uses the workspace timezone, parsed by the Reminders power.

After the lock

  • The locked thread appears on the Locking dashboard with owner, outcome, and reminder.
  • Removing the 🔒 reaction unlocks it; the dashboard reflects the change.
  • Late repliers are nudged privately — the original thread stays open so corrections and clarifications are still possible.

Recommended pairings

Thread Lock works on its own, but two other powers make it noticeably better:
  • Issues — enable to turn the outcome into a tracked issue if the thread surfaced a real bug or task.
  • AI Chat— required for the reminder field to parse natural-language times like "next Tuesday at 3pm".