Recent Updates

We improve the Slack platform every day by releasing new features, squashing bugs, and delivering fresh documentation. Here's an account of what's recently happened.

April 2016

• Apps 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.
• Tools Find out what we're building! Announcing our Platform Roadmap.
• Tools Need ideas for building on Slack? Try the Ideaboard.
• Tools Another way to keep up with the Slack Platform: Install the API News App to receive occasional, important notifications about the platform.
• APIs Your bot users author their own messages, now they can edit them too. Bot user tokens may now use chat.update, like humans do.

March 2016

• APIs Now chat.postMessage will better intuit your intent when you don't explicitly specify the as_user parameter. Let us know if we're guessing wrong!
• APIs One day soon our Web API will warn you when something is only slightly wrong with your requests. Read all about API warnings.
• Docs Be welcoming. Be kind. Look out for each other. This is the Code of Conduct for the Slack Developer community.
• APIs Now bot users can use methods requiring the dnd:read scope, like dnd.info and dnd.teamInfo. Your bots'll be more polite than a protocol droid!
• Docs Home in on hosting for your app or integration with this collection of hosting providers.
• Tools Craft your fancy messages in real time with the new Message Builder!
• Apps Users can now rename Bot Users they've installed as Slack Apps. More naming, more claiming. No more terrible twos.
• Docs We finally updated the slackhq/slack-api-docs repository, reflecting recently introduced and quite ancient documentation updates and new features.

February 2016

• APIs reaction_added & reaction_removed events now include an item_user field indicating the user that created the original content everyone's raving about.
• Docs Published this changelog you're reading right now. So that you can know about all this stuff. Tell your friends.
• APIs New Web API methods: share files publicly with files.sharedPublicURL or make them private again with files.revokePublicURL.
• APIs files.comments.add, files.comments.edit, and files.comments.delete are now available to bot users.
• Tools Quickly find the right tools for your project with our new listing of often-used open source libraries.
• Tools The handy test token generator previously found in the Web API documentation now stands proud with its very own page.
• Docs Need help? We have some tips for you.
• Docs api.slack.com's sidebar is now better organized by topic.

January 2016

• Alert 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.
• Alert url and url_download are no longer part of file objects
• Docs Enjoy our evolving collection of Frequently Asked Questions (and answers!)
• APIs Responses to Incoming Webhook requests now include channel_id
• Apps Make sure you're ready before submitting your Slack App for review by following this Slack App Checklist.
• Docs Incoming Webhooks documentation updated to better bait best practices and discourage fishy formatting behavior.
• Docs The file object documentation now includes a list of possible file types.

December 2015

• Tools Now you can upgrade your Slack App's OAuth Scopes by managing your apps. This article explains it all.
• APIs Don't press snooze until you've dreamed about our new Do Not Disturb Web API methods.
• Apps You can now package Bot Users within Slack Apps, making your creations easier to distribute to teams.
• Apps We launched the Slack Application Directory, where teams can discover apps like yours.
• Apps We announced the Slack Fund to "give developers the backing they need to build everything possible in Slack."
• Docs The api.slack.com home page is fancier.
• Docs Enjoy major updates to the Slash Commands documentation, expanding on topics like... delayed responses.

November 2015

• Alert Announced important changes to the Files methods of the Web API.
• APIs Added team.integrationLogs to the Web API.
• APIs Added authorization support for thumbnail URLs appearing in File objects.
• Apps More granular OAuth scopes are here! Now your apps can ask for the exact level of access you need.

Many wonderful developments occurred before November 2015, but they are not logged here.