Praise that means something because it runs out
A handful of tokens a day each, given publicly with a reason, gone at midnight if unspent.
Add to Slack installs Morgenruf on the free hosted instance CloudDrove runs. Self-hosting is the same MIT code.
Your token, your allowance.
Morgenruf is a free, open-source (MIT) Slack app whose kudos module gives everyone a small daily allowance of recognition tokens, in any emoji you choose, that resets at midnight in their own timezone. It runs on a free hosted instance or on your own servers, alongside async standups and coffee chats.
Last reviewed September 26, 2026
A daily budget, not an applause button
Everyone gets a handful of tokens a day. Give one with a message in a DM or a slash command, and it posts publicly with the reason. What is not spent is gone at midnight.
- Your own token: any emoji in your workspace
- Resets at midnight in each person's own timezone
- Leaderboards for giving as well as receiving
- Everything stored in your database, exportable as CSV
Set the token and the allowance, and see exactly what your team will get.
Why scarcity is the whole design
Unlimited praise is worth nothing. If everybody can thank everybody all day, the messages become noise and people stop reading them. A small daily budget that disappears at midnight does two useful things: it makes each one mean something, and it creates a mild pressure to spend them, which is what gets somebody to notice the quiet colleague who fixed the build. Midnight is read per person, the same way a standup works out when to ask.
How do you set up kudos in Slack?
- Turn Kudos on in the Morgenruf dashboard. Like every module it is off until you do.
- Pick the token: any emoji in your workspace, including a custom one.
- Set the daily allowance.
- People give one with
/kudos @teammate a reasonor from a DM, and it posts publicly with the reason.
Choosing the daily allowance
Five a day is a sensible place to start. Fewer makes each one weigh more; more makes it easier to thank the small things. Watch the givers leaderboard for a few weeks: if most people run out before lunch, raise it, and if hardly anyone spends more than one, lower it. The number matters less than the reset, because a budget that disappears at midnight is what gets it spent.
What it is not
There is no points store, no gift card catalogue, no vendor taking a cut of a reward budget. Recognition here is a message to a channel and a number in a leaderboard. If your programme needs prizes, this is the wrong tool and an honest answer now saves you a migration later. The HeyTaco comparison is where that trade is spelled out.
Reading the room
Recognition data is only interesting next to something else, which is why it feeds Insights: somebody who answers every standup and has never been thanked is visible in a way neither dataset shows alone.
About kudos
How many can each person give?
You choose. Five a day is a sensible default. Unused ones do not carry over, which is the entire mechanic: a budget that resets is what makes people spend it.
When does the allowance reset?
Midnight in each person's own timezone, not yours. Somebody in Sydney should not get a fresh allowance in the middle of their afternoon.
Can we use our own emoji?
Yes. Pick any emoji in your workspace as the token. The Morgenruf icon can be imported as a custom emoji and the bot picks it up on its own, falling back gracefully if it is ever removed.
Is there a leaderboard?
Two: who is recognised, and who does the recognising. The second is the one worth watching, because a recognition habit dies when the givers stop.
Can somebody give themselves kudos?
No.