I have the jenkins box named 'mw-jenkinsbot' and configured with the command prefix: 'mw-jenkinsbot:'. That works when talking in a public channel.

On the other hand, when doing a /query to the bot directly, the commands are not honored.

Example:

/query mw-jenkinsbot help

.. nothing ..

It turns out that private messages require the command prefix. I guess it should be optional in that context:

/query mw-jenkinsbot mwjenkinsbot: help
mw-jenkinsbot> Available commands:
... rest of help ...