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Conversations API

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The slackclient PyPI project is in maintenance mode now and slack-sdk project is the successor. The v3 SDK provides more functionalities such as Socket Mode, OAuth flow module, SCIM API, Audit Logs API, better asyncio support, retry handlers, and many more.

The Slack Conversations API provides your app with a unified interface to work with all the channel-like things encountered in Slack; public channels, private channels, direct messages, group direct messages, and our newest channel type, Shared Channels.

See Conversations API docs for more info.

Direct messages​

The conversations_open method opens either a 1:1 direct message with a single user or a a multi-person direct message, depending on the number of users supplied to the users parameter.

For public or private channels, use the ``conversations_create`` method.

Provide a users parameter as an array with 1 to 8 user IDs to open or resume a conversation. Providing only 1 ID will create a direct message. Providing more will create a new multi-party DM or resume an existing conversation.

Subsequent calls to conversations_open with the same set of users will return the already existing conversation.

import os
from slack import WebClient

client = WebClient(token=os.environ["SLACK_API_TOKEN"])
response = client.conversations_open(users=["W123456789", "U987654321"])

See conversations.open additional info.

Creating channels​

Creates a new channel, either public or private. The name parameter is required, may contain numbers, letters, hyphens, and underscores, and must contain fewer than 80 characters. To make the channel private, set the option is_private parameter to True.

import os
from slack import WebClient
from time import time

client = WebClient(token=os.environ["SLACK_API_TOKEN"])
channel_name = f"my-private-channel-{round(time())}"
response = client.conversations_create(
  name=channel_name,
  is_private=True
)
channel_id = response["channel"]["id"]
response = client.conversations_archive(channel=channel_id)

See conversations.create additional info.

Getting more information​

To retrieve a set of metadata about a channel (public, private, DM, or multi-party DM), use conversations_info. The channel parameter is required and must be a valid channel ID. The optional include_locale boolean parameter will return locale data, which may be useful if you wish to return localized responses. The include_num_members boolean parameter will return the number of people in a channel.

import os
from slack import WebClient

client = WebClient(token=os.environ["SLACK_API_TOKEN"])
response = client.conversations_info(
  channel="C031415926",
  include_num_members=1
)

See conversations.info for more info.

Listing conversations​

To get a list of all the conversations in a workspace, use conversations_list. By default, only public conversations are returned; use the types parameter specify which types of conversations you're interested in (Note: types is a string of comma-separated values)

import os
from slack import WebClient

client = WebClient(token=os.environ["SLACK_API_TOKEN"])
response = client.conversations_list()
conversations = response["channels"]

Use the types parameter to request additional channels, including public_channel, private_channel, mpim, and im. This parameter is a string of comma-separated values.

import os
from slack import WebClient

client = WebClient(token=os.environ["SLACK_API_TOKEN"])
response = client.conversations_list(
  types="public_channel, private_channel"
)

See conversations.list for more info.

Leaving a conversation​

To leave a conversation, use conversations_leave with the required channel param containing the ID of the channel to leave.

import os
from slack import WebClient

client = WebClient(token=os.environ["SLACK_API_TOKEN"])
response = client.conversations_leave(channel="C27182818")

See conversations.leave for more info.

Getting members​

To get a list of the members of a conversation, use conversations_members with the required channel parameter.

import os
from slack import WebClient

client = WebClient(token=os.environ["SLACK_API_TOKEN"])
response = client.conversations_members(channel="C16180339")
user_ids = response["members"]

See conversations.members for more info.