Inside the Lab: How We Use Slack to Drive Collaboration, Code, and Consistency
Slack is the primary communication tool for the lab. It fills the gap between updates and announcements at gpmtg and data deep dives (project-based meetings). It provides a site where wetlab-based and drylab-based members of the lab can synchronize and stay apprised of progress. This post intends to clarify how the lab has adapted its use to serve our mission.
A Lifeline for Learning to Code
Learning to code for research is notoriously challenging, largely because you “don’t know what you don’t know.” It is incredibly difficult to Google a solution when you haven’t yet learned the specific terminology required to ask the right question.
We use Slack as a psychological safe space for these early stages. Lab members can ask messy, unrefined questions and get rapid answers. Because the computational skills and tools we use are highly conserved across different research projects, someone in the lab almost always has the relevant expertise to help.
Rapid Feedback and Standardized Workflows
Our mission is to help patients, and they need our help as quickly as possible. Our science moves faster when you don’t have to wait a week for a meeting to get feedback. We use dedicated channels to drop in draft figures and get immediate feedback on data visualization and analysis.
Furthermore, Slack serves as our living repository for lab standards. Whether a new member needs help navigating GitHub or wants to understand our specific lab conventions for arranging files and setting up project structures, the collective knowledge of the lab is just a message away. The written conventions for Teams, GitHub, OSC, and the T drive are in Where Lab Files Live.
Automating Progress and The “End-of-Session” Habit
One of our core philosophies is that consistency drives progress. To demonstrate this effort, all of our project GitHub repositories are integrated with Slack. Commits automatically post to their respective channels, creating an automated log of progress.
To build on this, we encourage lab members at the end of every block of time you dedicate to coding, try to log your effort with two activities:
- The Push: Commit and push your code.
- The Status: Post a question detailing what was challenging/confusing about where you stopped, OR a figure demonstrating progress from that session.
This practice not only leaves a breadcrumb trail for the researcher to pick up the next day but also keeps team members working on that project apprised and allows the rest of the lab to step in and help unblock them immediately if they are stuck. The same expectation is in the user manual for Dan: every coding session should leave an output, even a small one.
What Slack is NOT: Boundaries and Best Practices
Just as important as how we use Slack is how we don’t use it. To protect our research culture and individual focus, we maintain a few strict boundaries:
- It is not a source of constant distraction: There is zero expectation for lab members to follow notifications in real-time or respond instantly. Deep work is critical in science. Just like email, we highly encourage “batching” Slack messages—checking them only at the end of deep work blocks or between sessions.
- Posts are directed at the lab: While Dan prioritizes checking Slack before email to be as accessible to the lab as he can—see the user manual—posts should always be made with the expectation that anyone in the lab can and should respond.
- It is not for Direct Messaging (DMs) about science: We actively discourage using DMs for project-related work. By posting in public channels, our work remains completely transparent. This allows anyone to jump in and help, and more importantly, allows everyone else to benefit from the answers and progress you share. DMs are perfectly fine for personal logistics (like letting the PI know you are out sick), but science happens in the open.
Celebrating the Wins
Finally, research can be a long, arduous process. While we review milestones in our group meetings, Slack gives us a place to celebrate the day-to-day victories in real-time. Whether it’s finally getting a stubborn script to compile, publishing a paper, or producing a beautiful figure, we use Slack to keep morale high and ensure everyone feels seen and supported.
By blending automated progress tracking with a culture of immediate, transparent support, Slack helps us spend less time stuck on syntax and more time focusing on the science.
A Welcome to Newcomers and Collaborators
If you are a new lab member, a co-mentored student, or someone added to our Slack simply to learn coding for a collaborative project (even if Dan isn’t your primary mentor)—this final note is specifically for you. Start with the Onboarding page for the rest of the getting-started guides.
We’ve gone to great lengths to cultivate this workspace as a genuinely safe environment for all levels of knowledge transfer. Please post often. Do not let self-consciousness hold you back, and never worry about whether your question is “good enough” or “smart enough” to share. This Slack exists to provide a place where all questions can be posted without judgment; it is one of its most fundamental functions. We built this space to help you learn and succeed, and we truly hope you find it useful.