Customize functionality for your own team or build a beautiful bot to share with the world. Provide your ingenious integrations with a suitably configurable container. Build a Slack app.
What your apps do is up to you — maybe it performs one distinct task incredibly well or perhaps it orchestrates a technological concert between individual Slack features and your internal accounting service.
First-timer or seasoned veteran? Often it's best to just get started and learn along the way.
Create a Slack app Manage your apps
Your app can do these things and more.
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
Your app can do a little. Your app can do a lot. It can be a simple tool, it can even be a bot.
Start by creating a Slack app for your team. Slack apps begin life locked down just for your team.
If you don't have a Slack team or just want your own personal sandbox to develop in, create a new team and return when ready. Just be sure to carefully decide where your Slack app will live. The app record cannot be moved to another team later.
Whether a Slack app first-time integrator or a seasoned veteran, it's often best to just get started and learn what's what along the way.
Here's what's in store for you on this heroic first step:
That's it. Once created, you have a Slack app to manage.
Before you start turning all the knobs and flipping all the switches, we wanted to let you know about a concept called internal integrations.
While all newly created Slack apps start their life installable only by your team, we recognize that the ultimate destiny of many, if not most, apps is to be used by your team exclusively.
Perhaps your app integrates with your hand-rolled bug tracker or that funky old database running on a 286 under the boss' desk. Perhaps it just integrates with your company culture but not necessarily with some other internal or external service. Maybe you're part of an Enterprise Grid organization and your app is useful for the team in the warehouse but not the team in the board room.
Whatever it is that these apps do is your business. We call this flavor of Slack app an internal integration.
Name, configure, twist, shape, and install your Slack apps by first logging in to api.slack.com and navigating to the My Apps section at api.slack.com/apps. There you'll find a list of the applications you own or collaborate with and their current stage of the app development lifecycle.
Just click on the name of an application to configure settings for that app.
Can't find the app you're looking for? Make sure you're signed in to the right team and reload as necessary. You can sign in to multiple teams at once on api.slack.com.
The chart below describes the states that a Slack app can be and how they flow to one another.
Slack apps begin their life void of features, uninstalled. Waiting for you to fill them with potential and functionality. We hope you move your app through the first two stages. Unless you're developing for other teams, stages three and four are optional. We're happy you're developing on Slack at all stages.
Just after you create your Slack app, it's not really capable of much. You probably haven't begun coding. You haven't declared the platform features you plan to use in the app, like incoming webhooks or a bot user.
It's an empty vessel somehow full with limitless potential. After you add features to your app, you'll make it installable.
By default, newly created Slack apps will begin in this state. This might be the end of the lifecycle for your app. If you only ever need your own team to install your app, progress no further. This stage can be your lifelong home.
Your app can either use the button-based installation available in your application management console or you can use OAuth 2.0. Rest assured, your app can only be installed on your team either way.
When you add or remove new Slack app features, you'll need to install your app again.
This step is completely optional. It's entirely possible you'll never want another team to ever install your app.
By setting your app to this state, other teams will be able to use OAuth 2.0 to install or sign in to your app -- all they'll need is your client ID and for you to have done all the work to support OAuth.
For historical reasons, apps created before February 28th, 2017 will already be in this state. Feel free to lock your app down to just your team, returning to the comforts of stage 2. See your old apps for more information.
Slack apps open to installation by other teams have additional security requirements: your OAuth redirect URIs, interactive message action URLs, slash command invocation URLs, and Events API delivery locations must all support SSL.
This step is also completely optional. Becoming part of the directory is a very deliberate undertaking.
Once your app is submitted or part of the directory, you are granted a "development" version of your Slack app with its own dedicated Client ID and secret and installations. You'll need to re-submit your app for approval again whenever you change app-related items like the name, icon, authorization settings, or Slack app features.
We have a detailed tutorial all about the App Directory submission process.
If you created your app before this most recent update to Slack apps on February 28th, 2017 then:
commands, bot, or incoming-webhook if your app makes use of those featuresAfter you create your app you will start out on the Basic Information page. Here you can see the features available for you to configure, see information about installing or distributing your app, configure your application's identity and delete your app.
There are a few options for configuring your app's identity. You can add an icon used to represent your app, change the name of your app, and add a short description for your app.
Note that there will be quite a bit more information to fill out here if you submit your app to the App Directory.
On the OAuth and Permissions you can add OAuth redirect URLs, choose some permission scopes, or revoke tokens from your app. For more information about OAuth and how it's used for Slack Apps see: OAuth, Add to Slack, Sign in with Slack, and Scopes.
For some features, you will need a Verification Token which is provided on the Basic Information page. This is used to verify that requests are actually coming from Slack.
Consider it a shared secret between your app and Slack. Every request Slack send to your server should contain this token. By validating it's equality to the one provided in your app management console, you validate that it very likely originated from Slack.
We provide a wide range of granular scopes that allow you to request the exact permissions that your app needs. For example, if you only need to post updates to a channel once an hour, you should only request the incoming-webhook scope. The full inventory of scopes list the API methods that each scope corresponds to. Here are some examples:
reactions:read and emoji:read scopes, your app can use related API methods to build a leaderboard of team members' reactions.incoming-webhook scope, users can grant your app access to post messages to a Slack channel of their choice, just like a custom incoming webhook integration.commands scope, authenticated users will have access to any commands that you have configured in your app.bot scope, you will receive a bot user token upon completion of an OAuth flow. You can use this bot user token to connect to the Real Time Messaging API.channels:read or files:write, you will be able to call their corresponding Web API methods.See Slack app scopes for more information on incoming-webhook, commands, and bot scopes.
There are many features to choose from when building a Slack app that each have a corresponding page for enabling them and setting them up. You can learn more about each by following the links below:
Of course, if you want to use the Web API or the RTM API you can do that with a Slack app too! The tokens yielded in the installation process are used to engage with both.
Once you've told us what platform features your app will use, it's time to install it.
By default, newly built Slack apps can only be installed on the team they belong to. Installing your app on other teams means learning the sad songs and waltzes of OAuth 2.0.
We've made it triumphantly easy to install apps on your own team without needing to learn OAuth. To distribute your app for other teams to install, implement our OAuth 2.0 authentication flow and submit it to our App Directory. Our team will review your submission and work with you to get it listed.
Slack apps are carefully scoped to use only the permissions & capabilities needed to fitfully function.
When installing your app, users can review its capabilities and configure settings right within our OAuth-based authentication flow. For teams needing even more control, Slack apps can be carefully managed and approved by team administrators.
Installing your app to your team is easy! Once you've setup your features, click on the Install App to Team button found on the Install App page. If you add new permission scopes or Slack app features after an app has been installed, you will must reinstall the app to your team for changes to take effect.
If you do not have admin access to your team, you will need to request approval to install the app before you will be able to finish. If you just want to get started without worrying about that, we recommend creating your own team as a scratch space for development.
App collaborators can install apps this way too. If you wish to distribute it to other members of your team, you will need to set up an OAuth redirect URL and have them install it with OAuth and/or Add to Slack button or sharable URL.
In order to distribute your app to other teams you may need to make a few configuration adjustments. You will need to add an OAuth redirect URL, make sure that features have been added, and remove any hardcoded information (like tokens etc.). While SSL is not required for Slash Commands, Event Subscriptions, or Interactive Messages when you are installing only on your team, for security purposes it is necessary when distributing to other teams. Then you can pass around the sharable URL or have people click on your embedded Add to Slack button.
Before Distribution:
After Distribution:
Want to distribute your Slack app so other teams can discover and install it? Once you're ready, submit it for review and consideration in our directory.
Apps submitted to the directory should be easy for teams to install and use. Our application review team will install and use your application and follow up with you for additional detail. As we receive many submissions, there may be a short delay before your application will be reviewed or approved.
Our Slack App Directory Checklist outlines the entire review and submission process.
Additionally, please review our API Terms of Service, Brand Guidelines, and Slack App Developer Policy.
When you're ready to submit:
After distribution has been activated you have the option of deactivating by clicking on the Deactivate Public Distribution button. This will remove the app from any teams that have installed it aside from the original one you chose.
Note that this can not be done after your app is published in the app directory.
Slackbot can suggest your directory-listed Slack app to new users. Find out all about app suggestions.
Not only can your Slack app do all those things but because it's yours, you and a chosen team of collab:
If you're reading this, then you, yourself, are likely an app creator and/or collaborator.
Collaborators like you may do such things as:
The Collaborators tab allows App Collaborators to manage which members of the team are allowed to configure a Slack app.
The team member that created the application (maybe that's you?) is also automatically made an App Collaborator. After another Collaborator is assigned, the application creator may "leave" or be removed from the app's list of collaborators.
Use the Add a team member control to add additional App Collaborators from the containing team. App Collaborators will have access to your app's credentials, so be sure and only add team members you trust with your Slack app's livelihood.
You may also assign your team's single or multi-channel guests as App Collaborators. These guests cannot delete a Slack app, nor modify your carefully pruned roster of co-conspirators.
Hovering over a Collaborator under Team members who can edit this app reveals buttons allowing app Collaborators to remove their fellow collaborators from the app, or for the currently signed in Collaborator to Leave the esteemed list of fellow App Collaborators.
Your team's friendly Slackbot will dispatch messages to fellow team Collaborators as changes to the roster are made — or in the unlikely event that a Slack app is deleted.
Slack apps can do a little. Slack apps can do a lot. What it does is up to you and we hope you'll give it some thought.