Now everyone's bot is present and accounted for. Events API-only bots can toggle online presence by visiting their app management command center. Details worth catching up on: bot user presence.
We made it so Slack apps have a profile within Slack like humans do — Here's an announcement tweet.
Let's extend a warm welcome to new app_id fields now appearing in our APIs. app_id is now found in rtm.start & bots.info. You'll also find app_id in the bot_added & bot_changed events. What's an app_id? It's the alphanumeric string found in the URL bar while managing your Slack apps.
We've added a new OAuth permission scope called users:read.email. Apps created after January 4th, 2017 will need to request this additional scope to gain access to team member email fields when using users.list and users.info. Existing Slack apps with users:read are automatically grandfathered to include these fields.
Now you'll find links to practical tutorials and thoughtful articles displayed beside relevant documentation found here on api.slack.com. Discover new articles or browse them by topic in our new Tutorials hub. Written something great? Tell us about it!
Our developer relations team has renewed Slack's adoption of key open source tooling: Slack Developer Kits. Discover our Python & node.js SDKs in their new home on our community index.
Your elaborate Slack apps are no longer shackled to but just one team member. Now you can invite other team members to be App Collaborators to share in the fun and responsibility. Here's what our web log has to say about it: Build together with App Collaborators
We will soon add an additional response_metadata node to our JSON responses; we'll put warnings there first and other useful stuff later. More details are available.
Newly issued OAuth token strings are longer than they were before, as we informed you about last month. Let us know if this vexes you.
Now you can use the users.profile:write OAuth permission scope to reset and upload profile images using users.deletePhoto and users.setPhoto.
We've dramatically improved the process of submitting a Slack App for inclusion in our Slack Marketplace. You'll find a helpful, interactive checklist when first submitting your app. When you're ready to iterate further, you can create a secondary beta application. If a core piece of your app's functionality changes (like requesting new OAuth permission scopes), we'll happily review your app again. Read all about it on the platform blog.
Ever needed to send a user to Slack directly from your app? Deep link and make native Slack clients part of your app's workflow: Open key teams, channels, and conversations. Or, defer to search results using the slack:// URI scheme.
The character length of token strings is getting longer. Find out how long they'll get and how to future-proof yourself for changes in the future.
You may encounter an occasional user ID beginning with the letter W. We've released a new version of node-slack-sdk to correct a related bug.
Introducing the Events API, a new way for Slack apps to receive event types previously available only to the real time messaging API. Subscribe to the events your app needs and have them delivered right to your server as they happen. Build a bot or event-driven app without worrying about websockets, and scale it like a web app. Read more about the Events API in our blog post, Subscribe to the Events API.
Until now, it's been easy to accidentally send messages flush with hundreds of message attachments. We've begun limiting the number of message attachments per message to 100. For approaches like chat.postMessage, incoming webhooks, and chat.update, and response_urls you will receive a too_many_attachments error. Unfortunately, we are unable to serve you an error when sending messages as part of a slash command or message buttons invocation response.
If you're interested in listing your Slack app in the Slack Marketplace, you'll want to review our new Slack Marketplace Agreement and consider our Security Review Process. Find these and other policies in our new Slack App developer policy hub.
We've corrected a bug where incoming webhooks could post messages in "#general" even 1. if that channel restricts posts and 2. the user owning the webhook was not allowed to post there. This new behavior will only prevent recently created webhooks from posting to restricted "#general" channels, so if your old webhooks are relying on this quirk, they'll be fine for now.
Now your applications can read and write defined team profile fields for individual team members. The users.profile:write scope allows you to edit fields with users.profile.set. The users.profile:read scope empowers you to discover available fields with team.profile.get and retrieve user profiles with users.profile.get.
Slack apps can now add action-invoking interactive buttons to messages, allowing you to simplify workflows and encourage users to take decisive action from within Slack.
For better readability, syntax highlighting has been added to code blocks throughout our documentation.
We've corrected the behavior of stars.list so that it only returns stars belonging to the owner of the presented token. The user parameter may still be used if the provided user ID belongs to the user utilizing the token.
Team administrators may now use tokens with the admin scope to request information about the billable status of team members using the team.billableInfo API method.
Now that bot_id appears in the real-time messaging API and Web API, you need a better way to look up bot users. Use the new bots.info method to query bot/application information by ID. It requires the users:read scope.
Additional real time messaging API events will begin including the event_ts timestamp field later this summer. Find out what to expect.
Now you can put down a footer on your message attachments. Use the footer, footer_icon, and ts fields to tie content across time and space.
For the few of you out there using outdated tokens, we've made some changes to authorship behavior when using chat.postMessage.
Error conditions in incoming webhooks are due for an improvement. Read all about how blanket HTTP 500s will become more fine-grained, purposeful error conditions. Shipped on June 16, 2016.
Recently introduced bugs in our iOS & Android apps cause message attachment fields marked as "short" to wrongly render long anyway. Our fixes may take a couple weeks to reach each platform.
Sign team members into your website, service, or application with Sign in with Slack, based on the same OAuth 2.0 flow used by the Add to Slack button. Read more about it in this announcement.
We've added two new API methods: users.identity works with Sign in with Slack and auth.revoke revokes hallway privileges for access tokens. Actually, it revokes the whole token.
Bot user tokens may now use files.info to look up information about files they have access to by virtue of their channel memberships. Also, very helpful for adapting to upcoming file events changes.
Manage your Slack apps joyously with our updated app edit pages.
File events are changing in the real time messaging API beginning May 16th, 2016. The files.info method is soon to be used by bot users.
As previously announced, we've added a bot_id field to relevant API responses. Let us know if you run into any issues.
We released a family of API methods to create and manage reminders. Meet reminders.list, reminders.info, reminders.add, reminders.delete, and reminders.complete.
We fixed an unfortunate bug where a team member could inadvertently uninstall a whole Slack App from their team by removing a single incoming webhook associated with that instance of the app.
Find out what we're building! Announcing our Platform Roadmap.
Another way to keep up with the Slack Platform: Install the API News App to receive occasional, important notifications about the platform.
Your bot users author their own messages, now they can edit them too. Bot user tokens may now use chat.update, like humans do.
As of January 4th, 2016, authorization headers are now required for most Web API requests involving file URLs. See this doc and blog post for more information.
url and url_download are no longer part of file objects
Enjoy our evolving collection of Frequently Asked Questions (and answers!)
Responses to Incoming Webhook requests now include channel_id
Make sure you're ready before submitting your Slack App for review by following this Slack app checklist.
Incoming Webhooks documentation updated to better bait best practices and discourage fishy formatting behavior.
The file object documentation now includes a list of possible file types.