shaydewael / sample-message-menus-node

An example Slack app that demonstrates use of message menus

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.

This sample demonstrates building a coffeebot, which helps you customize a drink order using message menus.

Start by DMing the bot (or it will DM you when you join the team). Coffeebot introduces itself and gives you a message button to start a drink order. Coffees can be complicated so the bot gives you menus to make your drink just right (e.g. mocha, non fat milk, with a triple shot). It sends your completed order off to a channel where your baristas are standing by.

Set Up

You should start by creating a Slack app and configuring it with a bot user, event subscriptions, 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 @coffeebot), 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. For example, the Request URL may look like https://mymessagemenusample.ngrok.io/slack/events. Create a subscription to the team event team_join and a bot event for message.im. Save your changes.

Incoming webhook

Create a channel in your development team for finished coffee orders (such as #coffee). 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). Clone this application locally. Create a new file named .env within the directory and place these values as shown:

SLACK_VERIFICATION_TOKEN=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
SLACK_CLIENT_TOKEN=xoxp-0000000000-0000000000-0000000000-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
SLACK_WEBHOOK_URL=https://hooks.slack.com/services/xxxxxxxxx/yyyyyyyyy/zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Lastly, 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).

Start it up

Run the application using npm start. Go ahead and DM @coffeebot to see the app in action!