python-slackrealtime

Python library for the Slack Real-Time Messaging API_. Requires Python 3, Twisted and Autobahn.

This library was a work in progress, and probably won't be "finished". I started writing this in 2014, to migrate some bots from Slack's IRC gateway, when the state of Python bindings for Slack was very poor. "One day" I'll migrate those bots to some other library.

tl;dr: Please use python-slackclient_ instead!

The project aims to provide a light wrapping around Slack's API in order to make objects of some of it's constructs, and provide some convenience functionality (such as converting timestamps to fully-fledged datetime objects). As such, the API will adapt (to a degree) to Slack RTM API changes.

It also includes a very thin wrapper around Slack's REST API_ (slackrealtime.api), for the purposes of setting up the initial connection.

It is designed primarily to allow writing bots that interact with the Slack API. I have a repository with examples available_.

LGPLv3+ license.

There also exists a Python library written by Slack themselves which doesn't use Twisted, python-slackclient_.

.. _Slack Real-Time Messaging API: https://api.slack.com/rtm .. _REST API: https://api.slack.com/ .. _repository with examples available: https://github.com/micolous/slackbots .. _python-slackclient: https://github.com/slackhq/python-slackclient

Installing the dev version

You'll need to install non-Python dependencies::

apt install libffi-dev python-dev build-essential

In order to install the development version from the git repository::

$ pip install 'git+https://github.com/micolous/python-slackrealtime.git#egg=slackrealtime'

This can also be included in a requirements.txt file like this::

git+https://github.com/micolous/python-slackrealtime.git#egg=slackrealtime

Getting an API token

There are three ways to get an API token for this library:

• xoxb: Add a Bots integration to your team, which has some additional restrictions_.
• xoxp: Use the Legacy Token Generator_ to create a token for your user, or implement OAuth2 (batteries not included).
• xoxs: Scrape the Slack Web UI for a variable called boot_data.api_token, which additionally allows you access to the users.admin family of undocumented methods.

.. _Legacy Token Generator: https://api.slack.com/custom-integrations/legacy-tokens .. _additional restrictions: https://api.slack.com/bot-users

This library does not presently support OAuth or other such authentication mechanisms, only static API tokens.