SlaCLI

A Command Line Interface (CLI) for Slack -- read, send, and manage your Slack channels from the command line!

• Usage
  • List
  • Read
  • Send
• Setup
• Suggested Shortcuts

Usage

SlaCLI is divided into three main functionalities: list, read, and send.

usage: slacli.py [-h] [-t TOKEN] {list,read,send} ...

Read and send your Slack messages over the command line!

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -t TOKEN, --token TOKEN
                        Use specified token instead of $SLACK_TOKEN

Commands:
  {list,read,send}
    list                List channels and users
    read                Read messages from a channel
    send                Send a message

List

Using ./slacli.py list will print your Slack team's public channels followed by the team users and their online presence. Adding the -c or -u flag will limit the output to only channels or users, respectively.

usage: slacli.py list [-h] [-c | -u]

optional arguments:
  -h, --help      show this help message and exit
  -c, --channels  List only channels
  -u, --users     List only users

Read

Using ./slacli.py read CHANNEL NUM will print recent messages from a channel or direct messages with another user. For channels, simply provide the channel name, while for users, use their username (including the "@"). By default, SlaCLI will show the last ten messages, unless a value for NUM is specified. Using the -u flag will instead show all unread messages in the channel.

usage: slacli.py read [-h] [-u] channel [num]

positional arguments:
  channel       The channel or user to read from
  num           Number of messages to display. Default is 10

optional arguments:
  -h, --help    show this help message and exit
  -u, --unread  Show only unread messages

Send

Using ./slacli.py send CHANNEL MESSAGE will send a message to a channel or directly to a user. The same convention applies for CHANNEL as stated for the read functionality. The MESSAGE argument can be provided as a string using either single or double quotes.

SlaCLI can also be used to send files to a channel. Simply use the -f flag followed by the path to the file. In this case the MESSAGE argument is not required, but if provided will be added as a file comment.

usage: slacli.py send [-h] [-f FILE] channel [message]

positional arguments:
  channel               The channel or user to send the message to
  message               The message text

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -f FILE, --file FILE  The file to upload

Setup

SlaCLI can be setup in 3 steps.

1. Simply clone the SlaCLI repository
2. Install requests, which can be done easily with pip: pip install requests
3. Slack requires a personal token in order to access information from your account. You can obtain one easily from https://api.slack.com/docs/oauth-test-tokens. You will need one per Slack team you want to access.

It is recommended to set your token to the variable SLACK_TOKEN. By default, SlaCLI will use this as the token. If you want to use multiple tokens (for multiple Slack teams) or to not store your token, you can specify the token to use with the -t flag.

Suggested Shortcuts

To make using SlaCLI easier, here are some suggested shortcuts to use:

alias sl='python ~/PATH/SlaCLI/slacli.py list'

alias sr='python ~/PATH/SlaCLI/slacli.py read'

alias ss='python ~/PATH/SlaCLI/slacli.py send'

alias srg='python ~/PATH/SlaCLI/slacli.py read general'

alias ssb='python ~/PATH/SlaCLI/slacli.py send @bob'