Slack Huddle Notification

⚠️Slack now has implemented built-in notifications when someone starts a huddle in a channel. ⚠️

How this app works

Slack public API doesn't expose any information about huddles.

There is an undocumented API endpoint (https://edgeapi.slack.com/cache/{TEAM_ID}/huddles/info) returning info about ongoing huddles but it requires user token for authorization. Bot accounts are not permitted to access this endpoint, so instead the app pretends to be an actual user by using a real user token for authorization.

How to get an user token and authenticate?

1. Log in to Slack in browser to the desired workspace
2. Open network tab and look for requests to edgeapi.slack.com
3. Choose a request and check request payload for token - the value of token will start with xoxc-
4. Set env variable SLACK_USER_TOKEN to the value of the token
5. From the same request, check the cookie tab and copy either the whole cookie or only the needed keys - d and x
6. Set env variable COOKIE to the value you get in previous step. The variable should look like this:

COOKIE="d=xoxd-%2BmcyU%2BLTIRdfKO%2BmMboAB9weYlV%2BrzLkXRqrZXTnXzUGzLIBAkyRfcUURrNw8VLXZk7tFHVPa%2BwjIHULIepheLJL65mA3YXXeo9wxRD37Mn8c%2By1VcyWvdBdFoy8m%2B0FZ7X19vSRj534xjv2c0ya9jufd7f8sf7dfy7dsfyd7ffd7fydf%3D;   x=enod5kiefgfgfd5mgioqfv8s2.1660519318;"

How to get TEAM_ID and CHANNEL_ID?

There are many ways to do that but I believe this is the simplest one:

1. Log in to Slack in browser to the desired workspace
2. Open console
3. Join a huddle in the channel of your choice
4. You should see a log of ongoing events, look for a line that looks like this

11:02:47.700 Aug-15 11:02:47.700 [HUDDLES] (T03T0K10A2W) sh_room_join, channelId: C03T0K143RQ, participants: 1

5. channelId is your CHANNEL_ID and the value in brackets (but without them) (T03T0K10A2W) is TEAM_ID. Example:

CHANNEL_ID=C03T0K143RQ
TEAM_ID=T03T0K10A2W

Creating a bot account (dev environment)

1. Go to Slack Apps page
2. Click Create New App button and select From an app manifest
3. Select a workspace - if you don't see your desired workspace, click Sign into a different workspace and sign in
4. Click Next and paste the contents of manifest.yml found in the root directory in this repository into the YAML textarea
5. Review the changes if you wish and click Create
6. In the Basic Information tab, scroll down to App-Level Tokens - this is needed for Socket Mode funcionality, which you'll be using in development
7. Click Generate Token and Scopes. Name the token however you want then click Add scope and select connections:write and then click Generate
8. You'll see your token, write it down - it will be used as value for SLACK_APP_TOKEN env variable
9. Scroll up to App Credentials section and reveal the Signing Secret value - it will be used as SLACK_SIGNING_SECRET env variable
10. Scroll up to Install your app, click it then click Install to Workspace button and then click Allow
11. You'll be shown your Bot User OAuth Token - the value is used for SLACK_BOT_TOKEN env variable. If lost, you can access it from Install App or OAuth & Permissions pages
12. Inside Slack app go to a channel of your choice then and go to options
13. Go to Integrations tab and in the Apps section click Add an App and select your app.

Running the app locally

1. Add an .env file in the root directory and fill it according to template.env
2. Run your local MongoDB and fill the MONGO_CONNECTION_STRING env variable

MONGO_CONNECTION_STRING=mongodb://localhost:27017/{database_name}

Or connect to a remote database

3. npm install
4. npm run dev to compile .ts files in watch mode
5. npm start