slack-edge app template (Socket Mode)

This is a Slack app project template demonstrating how to manage your slack-edge app using Slack CLI for local development.

The notable qualities of this app template include:

• Smooth integration with Slack CLI for rapid local app development
• No need to serve a public URL to receive Slack events, thanks to Socket Mode
• Auto-reloading for both TypeScript code and App Manifest (see: 1)
• Steamlined robust type-safety in TypeScript programming (see: 1, 2)

Getting Started

Install CLI and grant permissions

If you haven't yet installed Slack CLI, I recommend visiting the guide page to do so, and allowing it to install apps into your sandbox or paid Slack workspaces. To complete this, you will need to run slack login command on your terminal, plus execute /slackauthticket with the given parameter in your Slack workspace.

Please remember that either a sandbox or paid workpace is required to use the CLI. To learn more about the "sandbox", read this article for details.

Start your app on your local machine

Once your CLI obtains the permission to install a local dev app, there is nothing else to prepare before running this template app. Clone this repo and install all the required npm packages:

git clone git@github.com:seratch/slack-edge-app-template.git my-slack-app
cd my-slack-app/
npm i

Now you can execute slack run to activate your first Slack app connected to a workspace via the CLI. The CLI automaticaly creates a new local dev app, which synchronizes the manifest.json data behind the scenes and establishes a Socket Mode connection (WebSocket protocol) with the authorized Slack workspace.

unset SLACK_APP_TOKEN
unset SLACK_BOT_TOKEN
slack run

If you see [INFO] socket-mode:SocketModeClient:0 Now connected to Slack in the console output, the local dev app is successfully connected to your Slack workspace 🎉

Unlike before, you don't need to set any environment variables such as SLACK_BOT_TOKEN. The CLI passes the required variables to your app instance. If you have some env variables in the terminal session, you might need to unset them (e.g., unset SLACK_BOT_TOKEN) to prevent potential misbehavior.

Deploy the app to prod environment

For operational efficiency at a production-grade level, using a container is currently considered one of the best practices. You can use the Dockerfile, located at the project's root directory, for this purpose. To see how it works, you can execute the following commands:

docker build . -t my-awesome-slack-app

export SLACK_APP_TOKEN=xapp-...
export SLACK_BOT_TOKEN=xoxb-...

docker run \
  -e SLACK_APP_TOKEN=$SLACK_APP_TOKEN \
  -e SLACK_BOT_TOKEN=$SLACK_BOT_TOKEN \
  -e SLACK_APP_LOG_LEVEL=info \
  -it my-awesome-slack-app

Features in the app

This example app contains the following feature sets (release status; required scopes; the settings in manifest.json):

• An "app_mention" event listener (GA; app_mentions:read scope; settings.event_subscriptions)
• A "message" event listener (GA; channels:history, groups:history scopes; settings.event_subscriptions)
• A "reaction_added" event listener (GA; reactions:read scope; settings.event_subscriptions)
• A /run-test-app slash command (GA; commands scope; features.slash_commands)
• A global shortcut (GA; commands scope, features.shortcuts)
• A message shortcut (GA; commands scope; features.shortcuts)
• Modal interactions (GA; commands scope; settings.interactivity)
• A custom step within Workflow Builder (Still in beta; no scope reqiured; functions)

If certain functionalities are deemed unnecessary, you can safely delete the corresponding code lines in src/app.ts and required scopes and settings in manifest.json.