In just a few steps, we will create a Slack app to privately welcome and guide new users when they join a Slack channel. After you deploy the code, you’ll be able to return to make modifications and add your own style and custom message for a unique onboarding experience.
The Slack app will run on Standard Library, a free-to-use API and workflow hosting platform, powered by Node.js, that will use this repository as its project structure. Standard Library will automatically handle Slack API authentication/webhook signing and more for you, so you can focus on writing and modifying logic.
👋 Welcome and guide new members in a channel
📏 Set channel expectations
👉🏼 Highlight key people and resources
📅 Share upcoming events and due dates
💬Foster an active and engaged community
1 const lib = require('lib')({token: process.env.STDLIB_SECRET_TOKEN});
3 /**
4 * An HTTP endpoint that acts as a webhook for Slack member_joined_channel event
5 * @param {object} event
6 * @returns {object} result Your return value
7 */
8 module.exports = async (event) => {
10 // Store API Responses
11 const result = {slack: {}};
13 console.log(`Running [Slack → Retrieve Channel, DM, or Group DM by id]...`);
14 result.slack.channel = await lib.slack.conversations['@0.2.5'].info({
15 id: `${event.event.channel}`
16 });
18 console.log(`Running [Slack → Retrieve a User]...`);
19 result.slack.user = await lib.slack.users['@0.3.32'].retrieve({
20 user: `${event.event.user}`
21 });
24 console.log(`Running [Slack → Create a new Ephemeral Message from your Bot]...`);
25 result.slack.response = await lib.slack.messages['@0.5.11'].ephemeral.create({
26 channelId: `${event.event.channel}`,
27 userId: `${event.event.user}`,
28 text: `👋 Hello ${result.slack.user.name} ! Welcome to our #${result.slack.channel.name} channel. `,
29 attachments: [],
30 blocks: [],
31 as_user: false
32 });
35 return result;
37 };The first line of code imports an NPM package called “lib” to allow us to communicate with other APIs on top of Standard Library:
const lib = require(‘lib’)({token: process.env.STDLIB_SECRET_TOKEN});
Line 3–7 is a comment that serves as documentation and allows Standard Library to type check calls to our functions. If a call does not supply a parameter with a correct (or expected type) it would return an error.
Line 8 is a function (module.exports) that will export our entire code found in lines 8–37. Once we deploy our code, this function will be wrapped into an HTTP endpoint (API endpoint) and it’ll automatically register with Slack so that every time a member_joined_channel event happens, Slack will send the event payload for our API endpoint to consume.
Lines 24–32 creates and posts your message using the information (parameters) that are passed in: channelId, UserId, Text.
You can read more about API specifications and parameters here: https://docs.stdlib.com/connector-apis/building-an-api/api-specification/
Before we can deploy our code live, we need to Select the 1 Account Required red button which will prompt you to link a Slack account.
Select Link Resource from the Identity Management Screen
If you’ve built Slack apps with Standard Library, you’ll see existing Slack accounts, or you can select Link New Resource to link a new Slack app.
Select Install Standard Library App.
You should see an OAuth popup that looks like this:
Select Allow. You’ll have the option to customize your Slack app with a name and image.
Select Finish. The green checkmarks confirm that you’ve linked your accounts correctly. Click Finished Linking.
Select the orange Save Endpoint button.
Give your project a name and Save API Project.
Great! You’ve just saved your first project. Autocode automatically sets up a project scaffold to save your project as an API endpoint, but it hasn’t been deployed.
This means your endpoints are not yet live and can’t respond to HTTP requests or events. To deploy your API to the cloud select Deploy API in the bottom-left of the file manager.
🚀 Congrats! Your App is Live
Test your Slack app by joining or leaving any channel in your workspace. If you’ve set everything up properly you should receive a warm welcome from your Slack app.
There are two ways to modify your application. The first is via our in-browser editor, Autocode. The second is via the Standard Library CLI.
Simply visit Autocode.com and select your project.
You can easily make updates and changes this way, and deploy directly from your browser.
You can install the CLI tools from stdlib/lib to test, makes changes, and deploy.
To retrieve your package via lib get...
lib get <username>/<project-name>@dev# Deploy to dev environment
lib up devStandard Library has easy dev / prod environment management, if you'd like to ship to production,
visit build.stdlib.com/projects,
find your project and select it.
From the environment management screen, simply click Ship Release.
Link any necessary resources, specify the version of the release and click Create Release to proceed.
That's all you need to do!
Via Slack: libdev.slack.com
You can request an invitation by clicking Community > Slack in the top bar
on https://stdlib.com.
Via Twitter: [@SandardLibrary(https://twitter.com/StandardLibrary)
Via E-mail: [email protected]
Thanks to the Standard Library team and community for all the support!
Keep up to date with platform changes on our Blog.
Happy hacking!