Message Menus API Sample for Node

Message menus are a feature of the Slack Platform that allow your Slack app to display a set of choices to users within a message.

Setup

Create a Slack app

To start, create an app at api.slack.com/apps and configure it with a bot user, event subscriptions, interactive messages, and an incoming webhook. This sample app uses the Slack Event Adapter, where you can find some configuration steps to get the Events API ready to use in your app.

Bot user

Click on the Bot user feature on your app configuration page. Assign it a username (such as @chatbot), enable it to be always online, and save changes.

Event subscriptions

Turn on Event Subscriptions for the Slack app. You must input and verify a Request URL, and the easiest way to do this is to use a development proxy as described in the Events API module. The application listens for events at the path /slack/events:

• ngrok or Glitch URL + /slack/events

Create a subscription to the team event app_mention and a bot event for message. Save your changes.

Interactive Messages

Click on Interactive Messages on the left side navigation, and enable it. Input your Request URL:

• ngrok or Glitch URL + /slack/actions

(there's a more complete explanation of Interactive Message configuration on the Node Slack Interactive Messages module).

Incoming webhook

Create a channel in your development team. Add an incoming webhook to your app's configuration and select this team. Complete it by authorizing the webhook on your team.

Environment variables

You should now have a Slack verification token (basic information), access token, and webhook URL (install app).

If you're developing locally:

1. Create a new file named .env within the directory and place the values as shown below
2. Download the dependencies for the application by running npm install. Note that this example assumes you are using a currently supported LTS version of Node (at this time, v6 or above).
3. Start the app (nodemon serve)

SLACK_SECRET_SIGNED = "XXXXXXXXXX"
SLACK_TOKEN = "xoxb-XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX"
SLACK_HOOK_URL = "https://hooks.slack.com/services/XXXXXXX/XXXXX/XXXXXXXXX"
CLIENT_ID = "XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX"
CLIENT_SECRET ="XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX"
SLACKBOT_URI = 'mongodb+srv://XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX'

Usage

Go ahead and DM @chatbot to see the app in action!