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Introduction

slack9 is a terminal user interface (TUI) for tracking Slack messages based on search queries.

Features

  • Message search across channels using configurable search queries
  • Emoji reaction-based categorisation – organise messages by reactions (e.g., ✅ completed, 👀 WIP)
  • Configurable polling with an animated progress indicator
  • Channel filtering to narrow results
  • Deep linking – press Enter to open a message directly in Slack
  • Vim-style keybindings for navigation

Screenshot

Installation

brew install anttiharju/tap/slack9

Or download a binary from GitHub releases.

Also available via Nix at https://github.com/anttiharju/nur-packages

Usage

Use with a direnv .envrc:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

export SLACK9_WORKSPACE=https://foo.slack.com
# consider 1Password CLI for safe storage if you have it
export SLACK9_XOXC=xoxc-bar
export SLACK9_XOXD=xoxd-baz

and run:

slack9

Environment variables

Three environment variables must be set:

Variable Description
SLACK9_WORKSPACE Workspace URL (e.g., https://yourworkspace.slack.com)
SLACK9_XOXD Slack session token (used in Cookie header)
SLACK9_XOXC Slack OAuth token

SLACK9_XOXC

Dev Tools -> Console

copy(JSON.parse(localStorage.getItem("localConfig_v2")).teams[Object.keys(JSON.parse(localStorage.getItem("localConfig_v2")).teams)[0]].token)

The token is copied to the clipboard.

SLACK9_XOXD

Dev Tools -> Application (Chrome) / Storage (Safari) -> Cookies -> d

Copy the value manually.

Revoke tokens

Log out from the browser session where the tokens were extracted.

Configuration

config.toml is loaded from ~/.config/slack9 (override with $SLACK9_CONFIG_DIR).

[header]
past = "7d"      # Lookback window
poll = "10s"     # Poll interval

[categories]
blocked = "hourglass"
completed = "white_check_mark"
wip = ["eyes", "writing_hand"]

[state]
user_pings = true
search = ["help", "me"]
active_categories = []
show_uncategorised = true

Duration values support s, m, h, d, w, M (e.g., 7d, 2h).

Keybindings

Key Action
j / ↓ Move down
k / ↑ Move up
gg Jump to first
GG Jump to last
Enter Open message in Slack

Filtering

Key Action
/ Open channel filter
1–9 Toggle category visibility
0 Toggle uncategorised messages
o1 Show only category 1
Esc Clear filter

Commands

Command Action
:time <duration> Change lookback window
:poll <duration> Change poll interval
:quit :q :q! Exit TUI

Development

A Nix flake is provided for a reproducible dev environment:

nix develop

Alternatively, use nix-direnv to retain your shell customisations via

direnv allow

Nix cache setup

To avoid building from scratch, add the following extra cache substituters:

nixConfig.extra-substituters = [
  "https://nix-community.cachix.org"
  "https://anttiharju.cachix.org"
];

with the following nix.conf:

trusted-substituters = https://cache.nixos.org/ https://nix-community.cachix.org https://anttiharju.cachix.org
trusted-public-keys = cache.nixos.org-1:6NCHdD59X431o0gWypbMrAURkbJ16ZPMQFGspcDShjY= nix-community.cachix.org-1:mB9FSh9qf2dCimDSUo8Zy7bkq5CX+/rkCWyvRCYg3Fs= anttiharju.cachix.org-1:1/w1vNdGsG6EynEoWhjJLJ2rxqde2BP+wkKM+YdOxMQ=
substituters = https://cache.nixos.org/
experimental-features = nix-command flakes
accept-flake-config = true

Details at https://blog.ielliott.io/per-project-nix-substituters.

To get started with Nix:

  • https://github.com/NixOS/nix-installer
  • https://zero-to-nix.com

Troubleshooting

API logs

Launch with --debug to store debug logs under $SLACK9_CONFIG_DIR.

Build results in ProcessFdQuotaExceeded

  • Related to https://github.com/ziglang/zig/issues/23273

Run:

ulimit -n 512

This unfortunately cannot be packaged into the direnv setup.

Acknowledgements

Heavily inspired by K9s.

License

MIT