Working with Slack

library(promoutils)
library(dplyr)

Using the Slack API to schedule messages. First make sure you are authorized to work with the Slack API:

keys_check()
#> Key status
#> ✔ slack: TRUE
#> ✔ matomo: TRUE
#> ✔ linkedin: TRUE
#> ✔ linkedin_org: TRUE
#> ✔ github: TRUE
#> → Good to go!

If not, see the Setting Up Slack article.

Once you have set up your Slack access, you can use the Slack API to access the rOpenSci Slack space using httr2 directly or via the promoutils helper functions.

Posting messages immediately

By default all messages are posted in the #testing-api channel which is great for playing and testing, but when you’re ready to post for real you can change this with the channel argument.

slack_posts_write("Testing immediately posting in the Vignette!")
#> Slack message posted successfully to #testing-api

We can get a list of messages in this channel:

slack_messages("testing-api")
#> # A tibble: 2 × 5
#>   channel     ts                time                user      text                              
#>   <chr>       <chr>             <dttm>              <chr>     <chr>                             
#> 1 testing-api 1778789426.839439 2026-05-14 15:10:26 UNRAUCMTK Testing immediately posting in th…
#> 2 testing-api 1747073987.605889 2025-05-12 13:19:47 UNRAUCMTK <@UNRAUCMTK> has joined the chann…

And we can clean this up with:

m <- slack_messages("testing-api") |>
  slack_message_rm()
#> Only removing the most recent message
#> Message 1778789426.839439 successfully removed from C08RY1PUHM3

Check that it’s gone

slack_messages("testing-api")
#> # A tibble: 1 × 5
#>   channel     ts                time                user      text                              
#>   <chr>       <chr>             <dttm>              <chr>     <chr>                             
#> 1 testing-api 1747073987.605889 2025-05-12 13:19:47 UNRAUCMTK <@UNRAUCMTK> has joined the chann…

Scheduling messages

Let’s schedule a message for tomorrow.

slack_posts_write(
  "Testing scheduled messages in the Vignette!",
  when = Sys.Date() + lubridate::days(1)
)
#> Slack message scheduled successfully to #testing-api
#> Scheduled message successfully added to #admin-scheduled

• If when = "now", slack_posts_write() will post immediately (default)
• If scheduled, slack_posts_write() will also post a copy of the message and it’s date to scheduled in the private channel, #admin-scheduled, for quick checking of currently scheduled messages when you’re in the Slack app.

Screenshot of a Slack message in the #admin-scheduled channel giving the details of the scheduled message

See the currently scheduled messages according to the Slack API

slack_scheduled_list()
#> # A tibble: 1 × 8
#>   channel    scheduled_local     text  date_created_dt     channel_id id    post_at date_created
#>   <chr>      <dttm>              <chr> <dttm>              <chr>      <chr>   <int>        <int>
#> 1 testing-a… 2026-05-15 00:00:00 Test… 2026-05-14 20:10:27 C08RY1PUH… Q0B3…  1.78e9   1778789427

To delete currently scheduled messages you need to know the channel_id and the message id. We can get these from slack_list_scheduled() or we can supply the data frame directly as we did above.

m <- slack_scheduled_list()
slack_scheduled_rm(m)
#> Message Q0B3Z8LM4LR successfully removed from scheduled queue for testing-api
#> Message 1778789429.070449 successfully removed from C08T0PS0QDR

Note that slack_scheduled_rm() also removes the message posted to the #admin-scheduled channel, so that channel should be a faithful representation of messages currently scheduled via the API.

slack_scheduled_list()
#> # A tibble: 0 × 8
#> # ℹ 8 variables: channel <lgl>, scheduled_local <lgl>, text <lgl>, date_created_dt <lgl>,
#> #   channel_id <lgl>, id <lgl>, post_at <lgl>, date_created <lgl>

However, after posts have been sent, you’ll need to clean up #admin-scheduled with a call to slack_cleanup() which will remove any message in #admin-scheduled that isn’t also in Slack’s internal scheduled messages list.

slack_cleanup()
#> Nothing to clean up