Slack as a platform
What many users perhaps don't know about Slack is that underneath the messaging client, a highly extensible platform exists that can be used to create apps and business tools that can simplify the development cycle, perform complex tasks, or just be downright silly.
Slack's UI with its own Slack bot in action
This platform or API can be utilized to integrate third-party services into Slack's platform and leverage their extensive reach and user friendly interface. The said third-party applications can send data into Slack via incoming webhooks, execute actions outside of Slack with commands, or respond to commands as a bot user. The bot user or bot is the most interesting; they are so named as they can mimic human users by performing the same actions that any human can.
Note
Slack bots are software applications that run on the Slack Real Time Messaging (RTM) platform. Bots can be used to interact with external applications or your custom code in a conversational manner.
Some of the more popular bots include GitHub's multitasking Hubot (https://hubot.github.com/) and Meekan's scheduling bot (http://meekan.com/slack/), but many more of varying complexity are developed each day.
The most obvious and well known bot is Slack's own Slack bot, used for built-in Slack functions such as:
- Sending feedback to Slack
- Scheduling reminders
- Printing a list of all users in a channel
Another widely popular bot is Hubot. Originally developed by GitHub and ported to Slack by Slack themselves, Hubot can provide useful functionality such as GitHub activity tracking, which can keep you up to date with GitHub repositories.
GitHub integration showing branch and pull request activity
You can also add infrastructure monitoring through Jenkins:
Jenkins integration bot showing build automation logs in Slack
Bots can transform Slack from a simple messaging client to an important business tool, benefitting any company that uses custom bots unique to their workflow. The beauty of the Slack platform is that anyone can create a functional bot in a few simple steps.
