index_web.md

Slack Web API

The Slack Web API allows you to build applications that interact with Slack in more complex ways than the integrations we provide out of the box.

Basics

The Web API consists of HTTP RPC-style methods, all of the form https://slack.com/api/METHOD.

All methods must be called using HTTPS. Arguments can be passed as GET or POST params, or a mix. The response contains a JSON object, which will always contain a top-level boolean property ok, indicating success or failure. For failure results, the error property will contain a short machine-readable error code. In the case of problematic calls that could still be completed successfully, ok will be true and the warning property will contain a short machine-readable warning code (or comma-separated list of them, in the case of multiple warnings).

{
    "ok": true,
    "stuff": "This is good"
}

{
    "ok": false,
    "error": "something_bad"
}

{
    "ok": true,
    "warning": "something_problematic",
    "stuff": "Your requested information"
}

Other properties are defined in the documentation for the relevant method.

Authentication

Authenticate your Web API requests by providing a bearer token, which identifies a single user.

Register your application with Slack to obtain credentials for use with our OAuth 2.0 implementation, which allows you to negotiate tokens on behalf of users and teams. Tokens should be passed in all Web API calls as a parameter called token.

While developing or testing your app, you may use test tokens using our test token generator.

Generate test tokens

Test tokens are just for you. Treat them as you would a password. Never share test tokens with other users or applications.