Goofing on Slack

Have conversations on Slack, and stick to them.

Features

Operations:

goof slack supports fundamental send, update, and delete operations on messages, and threaded conversations.

Polyglot:

goof slack accepts different types of values to address channels and messages: Channel names, message identifiers (timestamps), and full URLs to both.

Multiple Messages:

Send and delete multiple messages within a single operation, increasing convenience and throughput.

Message Zapping:

Using the --zap= command-line option, messages are removed again after receiving corresponding events, making the feature suitable for development and debugging purposes.

Standard Markdown:

Slack understands plain_text, a Markdown-like syntax called mrkdwn, and Block Kit, a layout system based on blocks and block elements, which also includes a rich text block element. Because mrkdwn is proprietary, and block elements don’t exactly fit into command-line paradigms, this program exclusively focuses on letting users use Standard Markdown.

Synopsis

Send a message to a Slack channel, using Markdown format.

goof slack send --channel="testdrive" --message="**Hello, world.**"

Usage

Either define the authentication token as an environment variable,

export SLACK_TOKEN='xoxb-your-slack-bot-token'

or use the --slack-token command-line option.

Send

Send a message to a channel, using either the channel name, id, or URL.

goof slack send --channel="sig-automation-testdrive" --message="**Hello, world.**"

goof slack send --channel="C08EF2NGZGB" --message="**Hello, world.**"

goof slack send \
  --channel="https://acme.slack.com/archives/C08EF2NGZGB" \
  --message="**Hello, world.**"

Multiple messages

Send multiple messages at once.

goof slack send --channel="C08EF2NGZGB" --message="**Hello**" --message="**world**"

Update

Update an existing message by message ID.

goof slack send \
  --channel="C08EF2NGZGB" \
  --update="1740421792.358899" \
  --message='_???_'

Update an existing message by URL.

goof slack send \
  --update="https://acme.slack.com/archives/C08EF2NGZGB/p1740421792358899" \
  --message='_!!!_'

I/O

Send a message, reading its content from stdin.

echo -e "**Question:** What is...?\n**Answer:** _42_" | \
  goof slack send --channel="C08EF2NGZGB" --message=- 

Update an existing message, reading its content from a file.

goof slack send \
  --channel="C08EF2NGZGB" \
  --update="1740421792.358899" \
  --message="2025-02-28.md" 

Reply

Reply to a specific message by message ID.

goof slack send \
  --channel="C08EF2NGZGB" \
  --reply-to="1740421750.904349" \
  --message="hello"

Reply to a specific message by URL.

goof slack send \
  --reply-to="https://acme.slack.com/archives/C08EF2NGZGB/p1740421792358899" \
  --message="hello"

The message ID for this message URL is 1740421792.358899: Just take the last URL path fragment, strip the leading p, and insert a dot before the last six digits (the microsecond portion).

Delete

Delete a specific message by message ID.

goof slack delete --channel="C08EF2NGZGB" --id="1740437309.683889"

Delete a specific message by URL.

goof slack delete --id="https://acme.slack.com/archives/C08EF2NGZGB/p1740789929143349"

Zap

Send a probing message, and zap it again after pressing enter.

goof slack send --channel="C08EF2NGZGB" --message="**Hello, world.**" --zap=key

Send a probing message, and zap it again after three seconds.

goof slack send --channel="C08EF2NGZGB" --message="**Hello, world.**" --zap=3s