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68 points hgaddipa001 | 10 comments | | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom

Hi HN! – We’re Pranjali, Dhruv and Harsha, building Slashy (https://www.slashy.ai). We’re building a general agent that connects to apps and can read data across them and perform actions via custom tools, semantic search, and personalized memory. Here’s a demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeApHMHhccA.

While working on a previous startup, we realized we were spending more time doing busywork in apps than actually building product. We lost hundreds of hours scraping LinkedIn profiles, updating spreadsheets, updating investor reports, and communicating across multiple Slack channels. Our breaking point happened after I checked my screen time and realized I spent 4 hours a day in Gmail. We decided that we could create more value solving this than by working on the original startup (a code generation agent similar to Lovable).

Slashy is an AI agent that uses direct tool calls to services such as Gmail, Calendar, Notion, Sheets and more. We built all of our tools in-house since we found that most MCPs are low quality and add an unnecessary layer of abstraction. Through these tools, the agent is able to semantically search across your apps, get relevant information, and perform actions (e.g. send emails, create calendar events, etc). This solves the problem of context-switching and copy-pasting information from an app back and forth into ChatGPT.

Slashy integrates to 15 different services so far (G-Suite, Slack, Notion, Dropbox, Airtable, Outlook, Phone, Linear, Hubspot, and more). We use a single agent architecture (as we found this reduces hallucinations), and use our own custom tools—doing so allows the model to have higher quality as we can design them to work in a general agent structure, for example we use markdown for Slack/Notion instead of their native text structure.

So what makes Slashy different from the 100 other general agents?

- It Actually Takes Action: Unlike ChatGPT or Claude that just give you information, Slashy researches companies, creates Google Docs with findings, adds contacts to your CRM, schedules follow-ups, and sends personalized emails – all in one workflow.

- Cross-Tool Context: Most automation tools work in silos (one of the biggest problems with MCP). Slashy understands your data across platforms. It can read your previous Slack conversations about a prospect, check your calendar for availability, research their company online, and draft a personalized email. What powers this is our own semantic search functionality.

- User Action Graphs: Our agent over time has memory not just of past conversations, but also forms user actions graphs to know what actions are expected based on previous user conversations.

- No Technical Setup Required: While Zapier requires building complex flows and fails silently, Slashy works through natural language. Just describe what you want automated.

- Custom UI: For our tool calls we design custom UI for each of them to make the UX more natural.

Here are some examples of workflows people use us for:

▪ "Every day look at my calendar and send me a notion doc with in-depth backgrounds on everyone I’m meeting"

▪ "Find the emails of everyone who reacted to my latest LinkedIn post and send personalized outreach"

▪ "Can you make me an investor pitch deck with market research, competitive analysis, and financial projections"

▪ "Doing a full Nvidia Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) analysis"

Slashy.ai is live with a free tier (100 daily credits) along with 500 credits for any new account. You can immediately try out workflows like the ones above and we have a special code for HN (HACKERNEWS at checkout).

Hope you all enjoy Slashy as much as we do :)

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nikolayasdf123 ◴[] No.45129242[source]
> scraping LinkedIn profiles

is this legal? last time I checked linkedin.com/robots.txt do not allow scraping, unless explicit approval from linkedin

replies(3): >>45129373 #>>45129907 #>>45133735 #
1. breadwinner ◴[] No.45129907[source]
If it is publicly available information it is legal to scrape it, regardless of what robots.txt says.

See: https://www.webspidermount.com/is-web-scraping-legal-yes/

replies(2): >>45130231 #>>45134656 #
2. otterley ◴[] No.45130231[source]
As an attorney (and this is not legal advice), I don't think it's quite that simple. The court held that the CFAA does not proscribe scraping of pages to which the user already has access and in a way that doesn't harm the service, and thus it's not a crime. But there are other mechanisms that might impact a scraper, such as civil liability, that have not been addressed uniformly by the courts yet. And if you scrape in such a way that does harm the operator (e.g. by denying service), it might still be unlawful, even criminal.

There's a relevant footnote in the cited HiQ Labs v. LinkedIn case:

"LinkedIn’s cease-and-desist letter also asserted a state common law claim of trespass to chattels. Although we do not decide the question, it may be that web scraping exceeding the scope of the website owner’s consent gives rise to a common law tort claim for trespass to chattels, at least when it causes demonstrable harm."

They also said: "Internet companies and the public do have a substantial interest in thwarting denial-of-service attacks and blocking abusive users, identity thieves, and other ill-intentioned actors."

It's a good idea to take legal conclusions from media sites with a grain of salt. Same goes for any legal discussion on social media, including HN. If you want a thorough analysis of legal risk--either for your business or for personal matters--hire a good lawyer.

replies(2): >>45130608 #>>45134644 #
3. hgaddipa001 ◴[] No.45130608[source]
Smart
replies(1): >>45131695 #
4. nhod ◴[] No.45131695{3}[source]
Or run your legal questions through a frontier model and then have a lawyer verify the answers. You can save a lot of money and time.

Yes, all LLM caveats apply. Due your diligence. But they are quite good at this now.

replies(2): >>45132251 #>>45133088 #
5. hgaddipa001 ◴[] No.45132251{4}[source]
Hmm this is a good idea too
6. otterley ◴[] No.45133088{4}[source]
Have you actually tried this approach? I’m curious as to the result, especially when you took it to your lawyer. Not a contract review but a business practice risk evaluation.
replies(1): >>45135239 #
7. nikolayasdf123 ◴[] No.45134644[source]
what a nonsense. they explicitly say "do not scrape us, unless we approve". they put paywalls and captchas. their service is literally selling access to users data.

now you scraping it. this is direct violation and direct harm to their business, despite their explicit statements for you to stop.

you loose the case, it is clear as day.

8. nikolayasdf123 ◴[] No.45134656[source]
what a nonsense. this is equivalent of "sovereign citizens" online. go and try it, and get yourself into jail.
replies(1): >>45140798 #
9. Terretta ◴[] No.45135239{5}[source]
Some context from coverage of GPT 5:

https://legaltechnology.com/2025/08/08/openai-launches-gpt-5...

https://www.artificiallawyer.com/2025/08/08/gpt-5-tops-harve...

Remember when "asking for a friend" was a thing?

Today's expression is "I asked a friend". You can try that when talking to your lawyer about your latest ChatGPT — they might still believe you.

10. breadwinner ◴[] No.45140798[source]
Do not confuse strong language with strong argument. Yours is the former not the latter.