slack-cli

[!IMPORTANT] Disclaimer: This is an unofficial, open-source community project and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Slack Technologies, LLC (the company behind Slack.com). Slack is a registered trademark of Slack Technologies, LLC. This CLI is an independent tool that uses the publicly available Slack API to provide command-line access to your own slack data.

[!NOTE] This tool has only been tested on macOS. It may work on Windows and Linux, but this has not been verified.

Read-only Slack API client with CLI. Built for use by LLM agents and humans.

Installation

npm install -g @samkawsarani/slack-cli
# or
bun install -g @samkawsarani/slack-cli

Quick Start

# Interactive setup 
slack init

# Search
slack search-messages --query "bug report"
slack search-files --query "design doc"

# Channels
slack list-channels
slack get-channel --channel C12345678
slack resolve-channel --channel general

# Threads — paste a Slack message URL directly (right-click message → Copy link)
slack get-thread --thread-ts "https://workspace.slack.com/archives/C12345678/p1700000000000123"
# Or provide channel + timestamp explicitly
slack get-thread --channel C12345678 --thread-ts 1700000000.000123
slack get-thread --channel C12345678 --thread-ts 1700000000.000123 --all

# Find unanswered messages
slack find-unanswered --channel C12345678 --hours 48 --resolve-users

Library Usage

import {
  searchMessages,
  listChannels,
  resolveChannel,
  getThreadReplies,
  getChannelDaySummary,
} from "@samkawsarani/slack-cli";

// Search messages
const results = await searchMessages({ query: "bug report" });

// List channels
const { channels } = await listChannels({ limit: 50 });

// Resolve channel by name
const resolved = await resolveChannel("general");

// Get thread replies
const thread = await getThreadReplies({
  channel: "C12345678",
  threadTs: "1700000000.000123",
});

// Get a day's activity in a channel
const summary = await getChannelDaySummary({ channel: "general" });
console.log(summary.messageCount, summary.topParticipants);

Available Functions

| Category | Functions | |----------|-----------| | Messages | listMessages, findUnansweredMessages | | Channels | listChannels, getChannelInfo, resolveChannel | | Search | searchMessages, searchFiles | | Users | getUser, listUsers, findUserByHandle, getUserDisplayName | | Threads | getThreadReplies, getAllThreadReplies | | URLs | parseSlackMessageLink, buildSlackMessageUrl, isSlackUrl | | Summary | getChannelDaySummary | | Caching | loadMappings, saveMappings, getChannelId, setChannelMapping, getUserId, setUserMapping, clearMappings |

Configuration

Config is stored at ~/.config/slack/.env — works globally from any directory. A .env in the current working directory overrides the global config.

| Variable | Required | Default | Description | |---|---|---|---| | SLACK_USER_TOKEN | Yes | — | Slack User OAuth token (xoxp-...). Get one at api.slack.com/apps | | SLACK_CACHE_MAPPINGS | No | true | Cache channel/user ID↔name mappings in ~/.config/slack/mappings.json. Set to false to disable |

License

MIT — Copyright (c) 2026 Sam Kawsarani