Unblocked Context Search — Messages

Messaging-only retrieval. Calls context_search_messages with a natural-language query to semantically search team conversations — surfacing informal context, decisions, and discussions that don't make it into code or docs.

Sources: Slack, Microsoft Teams.

How to Invoke

context_search_messages is CLI-only in most environments — it does not appear in the MCP tool list even when fully available. Run command -v unblocked once per session and cache the result. Do not conclude the tool is unavailable from the MCP surface alone. See unblocked-tools-guide for full routing rules.

CLI (preferred):

unblocked context-search-messages --query "<your query>" [--instruction "<instruction>"]

MCP fallback (only if CLI is confirmed unavailable): fall back to context_research with instruction: "Prefer Slack threads and team conversations; deprioritize code and docs".

If neither is available: stop and tell the user Unblocked is not configured in this environment (see unblocked-tools-guide for the full message). Do not substitute with other messaging-search tools.

When This Adds Value Over Grep/Read

Grep and Read search local files. Use this tool when:

• Decisions happen in chat — architectural choices, convention agreements, and scope changes are often discussed informally before (or instead of) being written down
• You need incident context — outage war-rooms, incident threads, and post-mortems often live in Slack
• You want messaging-only results — context_research returns everything (PRs, issues, docs, code); this returns only messages, so results stay focused when that's all you need
• You want to know who knows what — conversations surface who has context on a topic, not just what was said

When to Use context_research Instead

Use context_research when you need the full picture alongside messages — PR discussions, issue tracker context, docs, or code history. This tool returns messaging only; broader context requires context_research.

Input

Parameter	Required	Description
query	Yes	What to find — write a complete question with concrete identifiers, not bare keywords.
instruction	No	Fine-grained control over which results surface: preferred channels, date ranges, or topics to prioritize or deprioritize.

Writing effective queries — include the most concrete identifiers you have:

• Service, feature, or component names (billing-service, checkout flow, rate limiting)
• Channel names when you know them (#incidents, #payments-team, #backend-review)
• People's names when relevant (what did Alice say about the gRPC migration)
• Time context when relevant (discussions last week, around the March outage)

Write a complete question or directive, not a keyword fragment:

Instead of	Write
rate limiting	Did the team discuss the rate limiting approach for the API gateway in Slack?
gRPC migration	Was there a conversation about switching from REST to gRPC for inter-service calls?
auth refactor	What did the team discuss when planning the JWT token refresh refactor?
outage	Were there Slack discussions about the checkout-service outage in March?

instruction examples:

• "Focus results on the #payments-team and #backend-review channels"
• "Focus on discussions from the last 3 months"
• "Prefer threads with multiple participants over one-off messages"

Splitting Queries

Split distinct unknowns into separate context_search_messages calls rather than cramming everything into one query. Run them in parallel when the unknowns are independent.

One query, two unknowns (diluted results):

Find discussions about the rate limiting approach and also the gRPC migration decision.

Two parallel queries (focused results):

Query 1: Did the team discuss the rate limiting approach for the API gateway?

Query 2: Was there a conversation about switching from REST to gRPC for inter-service calls?

When to Skip

• You need the current code state — use Grep/Glob/Read
• You also need PRs, issues, or docs — use context_research instead

Interpreting Results

• Conversations reflect what was said at a point in time — decisions may have changed since; verify against current code or docs before acting
• Mine concrete identifiers (channel names, people's names, thread dates) from results for follow-up queries
• Informal discussions may contradict formal docs — flag the conflict rather than assuming one is authoritative
• If results are thin, re-query with a channel name, person's name, or time range extracted from the first pass

Reference

• references/query-patterns.md — query examples organized by use case, with good/bad comparisons and instruction patterns