Handling Slack Slash Commands

Handling Slash Commands

Slack's slash command is a special event which mostly used as certain entry points for your slack app. A typical slash command message looks like: /todo ask @crushermd to bake a birthday cake for @worf in #d-social.

To enable this feature, you need to:

1. Configure slash command in your Slack app settings
2. Handle slash command events in your slack bot

Configuring Slash Command in Your Slack App Settings

• Slack's slash command can be created in Slack Developer Console → \${YourApp} → Slash Commands → Create New Command

• Fill in fields in the form correspondingly and save it.
  • Command: Your command text, must start with /
  • Request URL: The webhook URL of your slack bot.
  • Short Description: Description to explain what this command does.
  • Usage Hint: Hint text for arguments (Optional)

Handling Slash Command Events in Your Slack Bot

To determine whether the event is a slash command event, you may check the boolean value: context.event.isCommand:

async function App(context) {
  if (context.event.isCommand) {
    // handling the slash command event
  }
}

You can get the command from context.event.command and its arguments from context.event.text and use them in the reply:

async function App(context) {
  if (context.event.isCommand) {
    await context.sendText(
      `I received slash command '${context.event.command}' with arguments: '${context.event.text}'`
    );
  }
}