@alru/slack NPM

@alru/slack

This is a wrapper for the Slack Bolt SDK for Node.js, primarily designed to make it easier to work with BlockKit and Views:

Create BlockKit markup faster using ready-made functions

const {header, divider} = slack.blocks;
const blocks = [
    header({text: 'Hello world'}),
    divider()
]

Simplify your work with Views

// Define a view with a composer function
const {section} = slack.blocks;
const view = slack.home({
 composer: (slackId) => {
    return [
        section({
            text: `Hello, <@${slackId}>`
        })
    ];
 }
});

// Compose view and publish it
await view.compose(slackId);
await view.publish(webClient, slackId);

...and speed-up production with useful utils

Note: As this is just a wrapper, you need to be familiar with the Slack API and Bolt SDK.

Installation

  npm install @alru/slack

Initialization and listening

Initialization has a very simple wrapper that allows you to pass options (such as credentials) with which to run the Bolt application.

import slack from '@alru/slack';

const app = new slack.App({
  options: {
    token: `<your-token>`,
    signingSecret: `<your-signing-secret>`,
    socketMode: true,
    appToken: `<your-app-token>`,
    port: 3000,
  },
  handlers: [
    (app) => app.message('hello', ({say}) => say('Hello yourself!')),
  ]
});

You have to specify Handlers or Listeners properties. This is essentially the same thing, just functions that will be called with the app argument, which is a wrapper over the Bolt application. Given an app, you can subscribe to events in the usual Bolt way (e.g.: app.event()). The different names are provided for convenience and clarity, depending on how you will build your architecture: using listener -> handler or handler directly.

function exampleHandler(app) {
  app.message('hello', ({slackId, say}) => say(`Hello <@${slackId}>!`));
}

function exampleListener(app) {
  app.event('app_home_opened', updateHomeHandler);
}

In this case, native methods are wrapped to make it easier for you to get some properties. For example, all your subscriptions will have the slackId property passed to them (i.e. the user ID) and you won't have to search for it in payload or body.

BlockKit

Ready-made functions for creating BlockKit parts are available as:

slack.blocks
slack.elements
slack.objects

Views

You can create View instances using slack.home() or slack.modal().

You can either provide static blocks as a blocks property or use a composer function to render blocks dynamically.

function myHandler(app) {
  app.action('open-modal', async ({webClient, slackId, trigger_id}) => {

    // Static View Example
    const staticView = slack.modal({
      title: 'My Modal',
      blocks: [
        slack.blocks.section({
          text: 'Hello, World!',
        }),
      ],
    });
    await staticView.open(webClient, {trigger_id});
    
    // Dynamic View Example
    const dynamicView = slack.modal({
      title: 'My Modal',
      // Yes, composer can be async if you want
      composer: async ({slackId, message}) => {
        return [
          slack.blocks.section({
            text: `Hello, <@${slackId}>!\n${message}`,
          }),
        ];
      }
    });
    await dynamicView.compose({slackId, message: 'Have a nice day!'});
    await dynamicView.open(webClient, {trigger_id});
    
  });
}

Useful utils

Format date (to user local timezone)

const {formatDate} = slack.utils;
const date = formatDate(Date.now(), { token_string: '{date_long}' });
const time = formatDate(Date.now(), { token_string: '{time}' });

Parse payload values

const {parseView, parseAction} = slack.utils;

// Parse view submission values
app.view('some-view-submit', async ({view}) => {
  const data = parseView(view, true);
})

// Parse action value
app.action('some-action', async ({action}) => {
  const value = parseAction(action);
});