You're already in Slack, mid-conversation with a customer or a teammate, and you want to drop a quick note on the linked Zendesk ticket without switching tabs. Zendesk's native Slack integration makes that possible. This guide covers Zendesk's two comment types, how to add each of them on an existing ticket from Slack, and where teams typically extend the setup with ClearFeed.
Types of Comments in Zendesk
Zendesk provides two comment types:
Public Comments
Anyone who can access the ticket can read these comments, including the ticket requester and anyone else copied on the ticket. When a public comment is added, the requester is notified via email unless the notification trigger is disabled.
Private Comments
Also known as internal notes, these comments are only visible to agents and not the ticket requester or other end-users who might be copied on the ticket. Private comments have a yellow background and are used to communicate internally among agents without notifying the requester.
Important note: With the native Zendesk-Slack integration, you can add only Private Comments (or "internal notes") from within Slack. To add Public Comments, you need to use the Zendesk application itself.
How to comment on a ticket from Slack
There are two ways to add an internal note to an existing Zendesk ticket from Slack.
Method 1: Add an internal note from the ticket notification
- Hover over the ticket notification message in Slack to display the options.
- Click the More actions icon (three-dot menu) to display the message actions.
- Click Add as internal note.
- In the modal, the Ticket number field is pre-filled, and the Internal note field is pre-populated with the initial ticket description. Edit, replace, or add to it as needed.
- Click Submit. The internal note is added to the Zendesk Support ticket, and a confirmation is posted back to the original notification thread in Slack.
Method 2: Add an internal note from a reply
Reply to the ticket notification in Slack and follow the same steps above from the reply message. The internal note is attached to the same Zendesk ticket.
Where teams extend this with ClearFeed
The native integration is a good fit when internal notes are the occasional exception. When Slack is where your team actually works support — every ticket picking up replies, updates, and edits from the thread — the native flow starts to feel narrow: no public replies from Slack, no way to act on the ticket beyond commenting, and no ongoing two-way sync between the two systems.
ClearFeed is built for that pattern. It links a Slack thread to a Zendesk ticket in both directions and keeps them in sync as the conversation evolves.
AI runs across that connection. In Slack, a ClearFeed AI Agent can answer routine questions in the thread from your configured knowledge sources — including your Zendesk help center — before a ticket is even filed, or suggest answers privately to the responder team.
On the Zendesk side, ClearFeed writes an AI-generated title and description when a Slack thread becomes a ticket, and AI-driven status transitions move the ticket to Pending or re-open it based on the intent of the next reply — without anyone toggling status manually.
With ClearFeed layered on the Slack ↔ Zendesk connection, teams can:
- Post both public replies and internal notes from Slack, attributed to the actual Slack author when their email matches a Zendesk user.
- Create, assign, edit, and solve Zendesk tickets from Slack using message actions, emoji reactions, or a dedicated triage channel.
- Keep Zendesk in step with the thread: status changes (including custom statuses), CSAT responses, and Slack message edits sync automatically.
- Handle continuity beyond a single reply — follow-up tickets open when a closed ticket gets a new Slack reply, and auto-assignment routes ownership to the first responder in the thread.
Teams supporting external customers over Slack Connect, or running an internal helpdesk on Slack, tend to reach for ClearFeed once the native integration's private-note-only limit starts to slow them down.
Explore the ClearFeed Slack + Zendesk integration or book a walkthrough.
