slack-assistant

name	slack-assistant
description	Send Slack messages as the authenticated user via CLI and SLACK_USER_TOKEN.

Slack Assistant

Use when you want to send Slack messages as the user who authorized the app.

CLI commands are relative to this skill directory (use {baseDir}).

Confirmation

Always ask for confirmation before sending a message.

Requirements

• SLACK_USER_TOKEN is set (xoxp-...).
• SLACK_USER_NAME is the username of the authenticated user (e.g., tomk).
• Token has chat:write scope (and channels:read/groups:read/users:read / im:historyif needed).

Current User

You are sending messages as $SLACK_USER_NAME.

List users

bash {baseDir}/scripts/slack-assistant list-users

Check presence

bash {baseDir}/scripts/slack-assistant presence --user U12345678

Send a message to a channel

bash {baseDir}/scripts/slack-assistant send-channel --channel C12345678 --text "Hello"

Send a DM

If the recipient is unclear, list users to identify the correct user ID before sending (no confirmation needed for listing users).

Before asking for confirmation to send the DM, check and report the recipient's presence status.

bash {baseDir}/scripts/slack-assistant dm --user U12345678 --text "Hello"

Formatting (mrkdwn)

Slack uses "mrkdwn" format, NOT Markdown. Key differences:

Format	Slack mrkdwn	NOT Markdown
Bold	*bold*	**bold**
Italic	_italic_	*italic*
Strike	~strike~	~~strike~~
Code	`code`	(same)
Code block	```code```	(same)
Link	<url|text>	[text](url)
Bullet	• item or - item	(same)

Example:

*PR Review: v2/legacy cleanup (#499)*

• Removes unused helpers - _nice cleanup_
• See <https://github.com/org/repo/pull/499|PR #499>

Shell quoting (important)

When passing --text in a shell command, wrap the message in single quotes or $'...' so backticks and $ aren’t executed by the shell. Backticks inside double quotes will trigger command substitution and strip text.

Example:

bash {baseDir}/scripts/slack-assistant dm --user U12345678 --text $'Use `code` and $vars safely.'

If the message contains single quotes, escape them or use a different quoting strategy.