matrix-org/matrix-appservice-slack

A Matrix <--> Slack bridge

matrix-appservice-slack

A bridge that connects Matrix and Slack. The bridge is considered stable and mature for use in production environments.

Requirements

Hosting this bridge requires you to have a Matrix homeserver. In order to connect a Slack Workspace to your bridge, you will need permission to add bots to it. You will also need Node.JS 16+ or Docker on your system.

NOTE: Slack has introduced a new type of 'Slack App', which is not compatible with this bridge. Instead, you will need to create a "Classic Slack App" for this bridge. Existing installations will not need to modify their setups, as all pre-existing Slack apps became Classic Slack apps. We are looking to make the bridge compatible with both types, but in the meantime please only use Classic Slack Apps.

Setting up

See the getting started docs for instructions on how to set up the bridge.

Helping out

This bridge is a community project and welcomes issues and PRs from anyone who has the time to spare. If you want to work on the bridge, please see CONTRIBUTING.md.

matrix-appservice-slack's Issues

Messages from other apps in Slack (that use attachments) are silently ignored

Hey,
just noticed that messages from apps like the RSS integration are silently ignored. This might be related to #37 as both are not ordinary messages.
This can cause confusing conversations when other team members refer to something that was posted by another app ;)

a '#' in the matrix admin room crashes the service.

to reproduce, type # in the matrix admin room.

/home/slackbridge/matrix-appservice-slack/node_modules/olm/olm.js:18
(g=new Uint8Array(g));v(g.buffer);return g};a.load=function(a){F(read(a))};a.thisProgram||(a.thisProgram=1<process.argv.length?process.argv[1].replace(/\\/g,"/"):"unknown-program");a.arguments=process.argv.slice(2);process.on("uncaughtException",function(a){if(!(a instanceof O))throw a;});a.inspect=function(){return"[Emscripten Module object]"}}else if(ka)a.print||(a.print=print),"undefined"!=typeof printErr&&(a.printErr=printErr),a.read="undefined"!=typeof read?read:function(){throw"no read() available (jsc?)";
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       ^

TypeError: Cannot read property 'then' of undefined         
    at Main.onMatrixEvent (/home/slackbridge/matrix-appservice-slack/lib/Main.js:423:38)                             
    at Object.onEvent (/home/slackbridge/matrix-appservice-slack/lib/Main.js:66:22)                                  
    at Bridge._onConsume (/home/slackbridge/matrix-appservice-slack/node_modules/matrix-appservice-bridge/lib/bridge.js:664:30)
    at /home/slackbridge/matrix-appservice-slack/node_modules/matrix-appservice-bridge/lib/bridge.js:838:14          
    at tryCatcher (/home/slackbridge/matrix-appservice-slack/node_modules/matrix-appservice-bridge/node_modules/bluebird/js/main/util.js:26:23)
    at Promise._settlePromiseFromHandler (/home/slackbridge/matrix-appservice-slack/node_modules/matrix-appservice-bridge/node_modules/bluebird/js/main/promise.js:510:31)
    at Promise._settlePromiseAt (/home/slackbridge/matrix-appservice-slack/node_modules/matrix-appservice-bridge/node_modules/bluebird/js/main/promise.js:584:18)
    at Promise._settlePromises (/home/slackbridge/matrix-appservice-slack/node_modules/matrix-appservice-bridge/node_modules/bluebird/js/main/promise.js:700:14)
    at Async._drainQueue (/home/slackbridge/matrix-appservice-slack/node_modules/matrix-appservice-bridge/node_modules/bluebird/js/main/async.js:123:16)
    at Async._drainQueues (/home/slackbridge/matrix-appservice-slack/node_modules/matrix-appservice-bridge/node_modules/bluebird/js/main/async.js:133:10)
    at Immediate.Async.drainQueues (/home/slackbridge/matrix-appservice-slack/node_modules/matrix-appservice-bridge/node_modules/bluebird/js/main/async.js:15:14)
    at runCallback (timers.js:672:20)                       
    at tryOnImmediate (timers.js:645:5)                     
    at processImmediate [as _immediateCallback] (timers.js:617:5) 

Managing integration not possible in non-public rooms

While I can add the slackbot to a non-public (invite-only) room, if I later try to "Manage Integrations", I am told that no bridge exists (see screenshot).

Only after I change the room to public (which I can't really do in most cases), then can I manage the bridge.

OAuth2 configuration undocumented

The configuration schema contains entries for OAuth2. For those who know what it does, these should be self-explanatory. Yet the README.md does not contain info on how to use those.

See https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-appservice-slack/blob/master/config/slack-config-schema.yaml#L24-L33 for reference.

Consider "bridging isn't working" messages from bot

If a partially-configured room receives messages from Matrix, maybe the bot should announce "I can't forward this to Slack yet because ...". It should be heavily rate-limited; maybe not more than once per day, so as not to annoy people.

Refactor Slack->Matrix code path

There's lots of repeated calls to substitutions that could be neatened up. Additionally, many of the untagging operations (expanding @user #channel etc) don't happen in the case of lacking a master team key, leading to ugly message formatting a.la. #15.

Some sort of fallback parsing ought to happen for tags lacking a team key.

Create Matrix-side ghost user IDs from slack user IDs, not visible username

Users can change their visible name. If they do, this results in a new Matrix-side ghost joining the room, leaving the old now-dead one sitting there too.

Instead we should map ID->ID, displayname->displayname.

However, changing this now will cause some upset to existing rooms; an entire new set of users will join and the old ghosts will hang around forever, not being removed. Could be handled by a special one-off upgrade and cleanup operation, however.

olm.js error

When built with node:8-onbuild or node:6-onbuild, this appservice throws an error:

slack-appservice_1  | Loading config file /usr/src/app/config.yaml
slack-appservice_1  | /usr/src/app/node_modules/olm/olm.js:18
slack-appservice_1  | (g=new Uint8Array(g));v(g.buffer);return g};a.load=function(a){F(read(a))};a.thisProgram||(a.thisProgram=1<process.argv.length?process.argv[1].replace(/\\/g,"/"):"unknown-program");a.arguments=process.argv.slice(2);process.on("uncaughtException",function(a){if(!(a instanceof O))throw a;});a.inspect=function(){return"[Emscripten Module object]"}}else if(ka)a.print||(a.print=print),"undefined"!=typeof printErr&&(a.printErr=printErr),a.read="undefined"!=typeof read?read:function(){throw"no read() available (jsc?)";
slack-appservice_1  |                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        ^
slack-appservice_1  | 

Messages containing < and > don't get through correctly

During receiving something like:

private Map<Position, Token> mBoard;

I found that

private MapPosition, Token mBoard;

arrived instead.

feature request: relay deleted messages

it would be great if the bridge relayed deleted/redacted messages. This would probably require a mapping of matrix eventId -> slack ts.

Use native Matrix SDK to fetch Matrix-side profile instead of raw `rp` requests

Don't do this
https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-appservice-slack/blob/master/lib/matrix-handler.js#L70

Support for bridging file uploads (as opposed to sending images)

Created by @ matthew:matrix.org.

Slack option “Also send to #channel-name.” prevents message transmission

Hi,

if Slack option “Also send to #channel-name.” is activated message delivery to bridged Matrix room does not work.
So a message posted in a Slack thread with activated “Also send to #channel-name.” doesn't appear in Matrix without any error on both sides.

Thx for Matrix and the Slack bridge, hope this helps to improve the bridging mode!
anonybot

feature request: support slack msg edits

Currently edited slack messages are ignored. A good starting place would be to port how the gitter bridge handles msg edits over to this slack bridge.

see the gitter bridge code at:
https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-appservice-gitter/blob/master/lib/BridgedRoom.js#L286

Pills do not highlight Slack users

It's understandable that simply typing a user's display name isn't converted to a Slack-side highlight, as that would likely result in false positives. However, the recent "Pill" behavior introduced in Riot offers a clear signal that a user was intentionally denoted. It would be nice to support this.

Currently, in order to ping a Slack user, one has to use an @ prefix to their name - and this does not work together with tab completion.

Customisable Matrix-side displayname

At least add a default suffix of " (Slack)"

inviting slackbot user to join a room on another homeserver fails if the room has not yet been federated to the slackbot homeserver

I have the slack bridge running on the myserver.io homeserver. If the slack bot is invited to a room R on another homeserver #R:matrix.org, but a myserver.io user is not in #R:matrix.org, an error is thrown and the slackbot fails to join.

0|matrix-s | 2018-01-17 19:26: [-] POST https://matrix.giveth.io/_matrix/client/r0/join/!KqWLcRkqgZMdcVgFOV%3Amatrix.org (AS) HTTP 404 Error: {"errcode":"M_UNKNOWN","error":"No row found"}
0|matrix-s | 2018-01-17 19:26: You have triggered an unhandledRejection, you may have forgotten to catch a Promise rejection:
0|matrix-s | Error: Failed to join room
0|matrix-s |     at /opt/matrix-appservice-slack/node_modules/matrix-appservice-bridge/lib/components/intent.js:464:26
0|matrix-s |     at _rejected (/opt/matrix-appservice-slack/node_modules/q/q.js:864:24)
0|matrix-s |     at /opt/matrix-appservice-slack/node_modules/q/q.js:890:30
0|matrix-s |     at Promise.when (/opt/matrix-appservice-slack/node_modules/q/q.js:1142:31)
0|matrix-s |     at Promise.promise.promiseDispatch (/opt/matrix-appservice-slack/node_modules/q/q.js:808:41)
0|matrix-s |     at /opt/matrix-appservice-slack/node_modules/q/q.js:624:44
0|matrix-s |     at runSingle (/opt/matrix-appservice-slack/node_modules/q/q.js:137:13)
0|matrix-s |     at flush (/opt/matrix-appservice-slack/node_modules/q/q.js:125:13)
0|matrix-s |     at _combinedTickCallback (internal/process/next_tick.js:73:7)
0|matrix-s |     at process._tickDomainCallback (internal/process/next_tick.js:128:9)

Consider how "teams" will work

For a general-purpose bridge (e.g. the one matrix.org themselves run) it is insufficient to create Matrix-side ghosts named simply after the local username within one slack team - if there are many teams there will be many "Bob"s. In general the Matrix-side usernames have to include the Slack team name as well.

However, for most small-scale deployments by individuals, they will probably not want this. So consider adding a "single-team mode" to the bridge, which restricts its operation to within one Slack-side team, meaning shorter Matrix-side usernames for ghosts.

Slack Snippets are silently ignored

See https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/articles/204145658-Create-a-snippet

some slack users are being incorrectly bridged with displayname me1

and other random numeric suffixes, on the mozfest slack bridge; much confusion

Customisable Slack-side displayname

Analogously to #18 - it ought to be possible to choose how the Matrix user messages are relayed into Slack. Displayname alone may not be sufficient - either duplicates within the Matrix room (for which hopefully we can apply the same disamb. logic as other clients use), and there might even be clashes with native Slack users. Indeed, there will likely be several overlapping humans who use both sides, so surely they alone will clash if nothing else. It might be nice to offer options on how to resolve those.

Implement the 3PE lookup APIs

Consider carefully how teams work. See #19

Allow users to specify OAuth2 tokens

Most of the interesting core bits of bridge functionality actually require the powerful "team token". So far those have been manually specified and stored directly in the core config file checked into internal-config. Clearly this is insufficient for regular users.

There's two parts to this problem:

• How do users generate that token in the first place?
• How do users tell us the token?

Try out topic changes

These might come in the webhooks API.

Slack shows user(s) as "incoming-webhook" when Matrix display name has not been set

If a matrix user hasn't set their display name, and thus it renders in Riot client as something like: "@TheDude:matrix.org" the slack bridge will show username(s) in Slack channel as "incoming-webhook". This can be problematic when several different users are getting renamed to "incoming-webhook". As soon as display name is set, bridge renders name symmetrically between Matrix/Slack.

Pass codeblock markdown

Basic markdown support has been implemented. It would be nice to extend this support to include code blocks, so that arbitrarily long code pastes do not spam the chat on either service.

Copy per-user avatar images from Slack into Matrix ghosts

See matrix-appservice-gitter for inspiration. Add it to the displayname copying code, around
https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-appservice-slack/blob/master/lib/BridgedRoom.js#L65

Also at the same time, use the UserStore database to keep track of current values of avatar / displayname and only push actual changes into Matrix.

Avatars bridged from matrix to slack do not preserve aspect ratio

No Markdown support.

Messages formatted with markdown in Slack arrive as raw text in Riot.

Try RTM API instead of in+outbound webhooks

https://api.slack.com/rtm

In summary it seems:

• We could use the RTM API to puppet for individual users who opt-in, in much the way that we're trying with the Gitter bridge.
• Or, we could create an "app bot" account, that lets a bot user join Slack rooms. - https://api.slack.com/bot-users

Handle "edited" messages

Apparently messages in Slack can be edited after posting.

Maybe attempt to handle these similar to the way the Gitter bridge does. Steal its diff-like code.

Error if users try to DM people via Slack

...rather than failing silently

feature request: relay files from matrix -> slack

When uploading a file (other then imgs) to matrix, the file isn't relayed to slack. It would be nice to support this.

Work out how we can identify ourselves and not ignore other webooks

The gitter relaybot acts as a real bot user with a real user ID, so it can recognise reflections via gitter of its own messages, and ignore those on the inbound path.

By comparison, there is no slack user corresponding to our own specific webhook integration. All webhook integrations always appear under the special user ID of "USLACKBOT". This means that the logic to identify our own reflections also rejects every other message from any other webhook integration.

It's possible we can use the bot_id field.

Multi slack room bridged

If you link many slack room to one matrix room, only the last one setted is actually linked.

Slack message referencing to a slack user is gibberish

hey,

we have a slack bridge running, but when someone on slack references a user, it translates to something like '@U0TLNKQRL' instead of a username.
This has the side effect that person is not notified, nor no ones knows who is referenced.
We need to guess by the context. :)

If those reference id's stay the same, this seems fixable.

Cheers!
Tom

There's no way to tell what slack channel a room is bridged into

TypeError: Cannot read property 'url' of undefined

When running the cli in a Docker container, an error is thrown:

slack-appservice_1  | TypeError: Cannot read property 'url' of undefined
slack-appservice_1  |     at Function.AppServiceRegistration.fromObject (/usr/src/app/node_modules/matrix-
appservice/lib/app-service-registration.js:231:13)
slack-appservice_1  |     at Cli._startWithConfig (/usr/src/app/node_modules/matrix-appservice-bridge/lib/
components/cli.js:182:32)
slack-appservice_1  |     at Cli.run (/usr/src/app/node_modules/matrix-appservice-bridge/lib/components/cl
i.js:139:10)
slack-appservice_1  |     at Object.<anonymous> (/usr/src/app/app.js:28:5)
slack-appservice_1  |     at Module._compile (module.js:570:32)
slack-appservice_1  |     at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:579:10)
slack-appservice_1  |     at Module.load (module.js:487:32)
slack-appservice_1  |     at tryModuleLoad (module.js:446:12)
slack-appservice_1  |     at Function.Module._load (module.js:438:3)
slack-appservice_1  |     at Module.runMain (module.js:604:10)
slack-appservice_1  |     at run (bootstrap_node.js:389:7)
slack-appservice_1  |     at startup (bootstrap_node.js:149:9)
slack-appservice_1  |     at bootstrap_node.js:504:3

The example.sample.yaml does not contain the required field: https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-appservice-slack/blob/master/config/config.sample.yaml

Unfortunately it is required from https://github.com/matrix-org/matrix-appservice-node/blob/master/lib/app-service-registration.js#L231

What am I missing here?

Find a solution to Matrix->Matrix message relay in multimatrix bridged rooms

Currently there's no neat handling of the case of a BridgedRoom with multiple matrix rooms attached; see d7052fb.

Sequence profile setup before first message for new users

Otherwise awkward things happen.

Fix the need for one integration per bridged channel

Bridging a larger Slack community onto Matrix would seemingly require one integration per channel. Since most communities are on a free plan there's a limit on the number of integrations that can be added and it's not very high (don't know the exact number but I'd guess it's below 10).

This makes bridging a larger number of rooms including user metadata not really possible.

m.image doesn't contain url property

I'm not sure if this or slackbridge is running the #DWebSummit bridge, but the m.image messages coming from the bridge aren't up to spec:

((thumbnail_url . "https://files.slack.com/files-tmb/T14KGBP17-F1G4EB0MA-cf6a09a2d5/jason_griffey_builders_day_6-7-16_360.jpg") (thumbnail_info (w . 360) (h . 240)) (msgtype . "m.image") (info (w . 750) (size . 47866) (mimetype . "image/jpeg") (h . 500)) (body . "Jason Griffey Builders Day 6-7-16.jpg"))                                                                      

Spec says that `url' is required.

"message" with image attachments doesn't bridge correctly

Apparently some messages can arrive from Slack with image attachments on, that aren't just image messages. They appear to be results out of the Slack-side Giphy integration, and look something like:

Looked up message from history as {"type":"message","user":"U123","text":"more text here","bot_id":"B456","attachments":[{"fallback":"giphy: <http://giphy.com/...>","image_url":"http://media.giphy.com/...","image_width":250,"image_height":250,"image_bytes":1234,"is_animated":true,"title":"...","id":1,"title_link":"http://giphy.com/..."}],"ts":"123456789"}

The bridge doesn't currently extract the image, just the text:

running substitutions on: more text here
[-] PUT http://matrix.org/_matrix/client/r0/rooms/!aBcDeF:domain.com/send/m.room.message/m123456789 (@_slack_domain_U123:matrix.org) Body: {"body":"more text here","msgtype":"m.text"}

Ignoring message with bad slackhook URL /

Why is it bad?

what does url.match expect the url to look like?
can you give an example?

Usernames going away?

See https://api.slack.com/changelog/2017-09-the-one-about-usernames
It seems it has already started:

Is it possible to use HTTPS between the homeserver and bridge?

It looks like all examples and even the AS API spec talk about HTTP only, but since the bridge could be run on a different host than the homeserver, it would be nice if HTTPS were an option too.

File uploads fail with '@U025KJVK5|trevor uploaded a file: Unreads'

Created by @ matthew:matrix.org.

feature request: support binding the service to an IP.

I run the service with a reverse proxy in front handling ssl. it would be nice to be able to force the app service to bind to localhost only.

How to deal with threads

Today I kept seeing messages in Matrix that I wasn't seeing in the actual Slack web client. I pulled out my hair for a while trying to figure out what was going on, thinking perhaps someone had blocked me personally or something, before eventually finding the messages in a thread from days earlier that I wasn't following. I understand if Matrix doesn't support threaded conversations (yet, I hope!), but it would be extremely helpful if there was some kind of indicator that a message was a part of a threaded conversation, even something as simple as a ↳ before the message or something might be good enough.

Work out how regular users are supposed to deal with "channel IDs"

Currently to set up an linked room in the bridge, the configuration needs to know, among other things, the slack channel ID of the relevant slack channel. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, users can't actually know this from the slack UI. It's not made apparent to them anywhere.