The moment it happens

Suggest friendlier words when someone writes 'hey guys'

A gentle reply in the thread offers an alternative, without anyone having to say it themselves.

Runs: The moment it happens
Apps: Mattermost
AI: Not needed
Access: create outgoing webhook + create_post

Send this to your assistant

Create a ClickRuntime automation: watch our public Mattermost channels and, when someone addresses the group as 'guys', reply in the thread suggesting 'folks', 'team' or 'everyone'.

Paste it into your assistant. It tells you what it will send or change before it runs live.

Add to ChatGPT Add to Claude

First time? Adding ClickRuntime to your assistant takes about two minutes.

Why use it

Why teams use this automation

Most people who write "hey guys" to a mixed team mean nothing by it, and most of the colleagues who feel left out by it say nothing either. An HR lead can put a line in the handbook and run a workshop, but the habit lives in everyday chat, where nobody wants to be the person who corrects a senior engineer in public. So the phrase keeps appearing, and the quiet cost shows up in engagement surveys months later.

Whenever a message is posted in a Mattermost channel you choose, ClickRuntime checks it against a word list you control. If it finds a phrase such as "hey guys", the bot replies in a thread with a friendly suggestion like "folks" or "team". The reply is in the thread, so the channel stays uncluttered.

It suits companies that want to encourage better habits without policing, and the list can grow to cover other phrases that your culture guide asks people to avoid.

What you get out of it

Gentle correction replaces awkward confrontation
A bot reply carries no judgment about the writer. People accept a neutral suggestion in a thread far more readily than a correction from a colleague, particularly one who is more senior.
Habits change through repetition
A policy document is read once. A small, consistent nudge each time the phrase appears teaches people a new default within weeks, because the reminder shows up at the exact moment they are typing.
New hires pick up the culture fast
People who join from other companies learn how your team talks by seeing the bot's thread replies. That is more effective than expecting them to remember a paragraph from onboarding week.
The word list is yours
You decide which phrases trigger a reply and what the suggestion says. That means the tone fits your company, and you can retire a phrase when it has stopped appearing in conversations.
Visible commitment to inclusion
Colleagues who often feel overlooked can see that the company acts on its stated values in daily tools. That builds trust more than a statement on the careers page. It also gives employee resource groups something concrete to point to when leadership asks what has changed.
Feedback without a paper trail of blame
Because replies are generic and automatic, no one is singled out in a report. People adjust their wording without the fear that a manager is keeping count of who slipped.

How it works

What happens, step by step

When someone posts a message with a phrase like "hey guys" in Mattermost, it is passed to ClickRuntime straight away.
The automation checks the message really contains the phrase and ignores anything else.
It replies in that message's thread with a friendly suggestion to try "folks", "team" or "everyone" next time.

Before it runs live

Connect Mattermost
Paste your automation's link into the other app's webhook settings

What you get

RunsThe moment it happens

Suggest friendlier words when someone writes 'hey guys'just nowSucceeded

Mattermost · thread replyFriendly nudge: next time try 'folks', 'team' or 'everyone' :wave:

Build your own

Need it to work differently?

This template is a starting point. Copy the prompt and change it, or describe a different automation from scratch, with your own conditions, more apps or an AI step. Your assistant writes it, tests it and runs it on ClickRuntime.

Your own rules
Conditions, thresholds, filters and exceptions, written the way you'd explain them to a colleague.
Any number of apps
One automation can read from one app and update several others. Over 248 apps are ready, and anything with an API works too.
AI where it helps
Summaries, classification, extraction and drafts use ClickRuntime's built-in AI, with no extra key.
On a schedule or on each event
Runs as often as every 5 minutes, or the moment an app sends an event, and keeps track of what it already handled.

Changes you can ask for

Act only on the items that match your own rules, and skip the rest
Add an AI step, for example to summarize, sort or draft a reply
Add another app, for example also send it to Slack
Combine it with other Mattermost steps into one automation

Under the hood

The code that runs this automation

This is the Python script that runs each time the automation starts. Your AI assistant writes it for you when you send the prompt, and you allow each step in your assistant. To change how the automation works, describe the change to your assistant and it updates the script for you. For every function it can use, see the script reference.

inclusive_language_nudge_bot.pyexample

import re
from clickruntime import on_event, credentials, http

BASE = "https://chat.acme.com/api/v4"
PATTERN = re.compile(r"\b(hey|hi|hello|thanks|morning)?\s*guys\b", re.I)

@on_event
def handle(event):
    msg = event.json or {}
    if not PATTERN.search(msg.get("text", "")):
        return {"matched": False}
    http.post(f"{BASE}/posts", headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {credentials.secret('MATTERMOST_TOKEN')}"},
              json={"channel_id": msg["channel_id"], "root_id": msg["post_id"],
                    "message": "Friendly nudge: next time try 'folks', 'team' or 'everyone' :wave:"}).raise_for_status()
    return {"matched": True}

FAQ

Common questions

Does the bot reply to messages in every channel?

Only in the channels you connect it to. You can limit it to general team channels and leave out private or customer-facing ones, where a bot reply might be out of place. A private or customer-facing channel can be left out.

Will it match the phrase inside other words or only exact phrases?

It checks messages against the word list you supply, usually as whole words or phrases so that unrelated words are not matched by accident. You can tell your AI assistant if you need looser or stricter matching.

Can people turn it off or ignore it?

The replies are ordinary thread messages, so people can simply read and move on. If a channel prefers not to have the nudges, you can remove it from the setup. The run history in the ClickRuntime dashboard shows when the bot replied.

What permissions does it need?

create outgoing webhook + create_post. Nothing else in your accounts is used.

Does it need AI?

No. It runs without AI, so it doesn't use your plan's AI allowance.

How many runs does it use?

One run for each event the app sends.

Can I change how it works?

Yes. Describe the change to your AI assistant, for example a different schedule, channel or filter. It updates the automation, tests it and tells you what changed.

The moment it happens