@parke.dev/pi-slack

Slack channels, threads and messages, as a Pi extension.

pi install npm:@parke.dev/pi-slack      # once published

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What it does

Run slack_status first — it reports what is reachable, which credential is in use, and what this package deliberately will not do.

Credentials

Slack has an official hosted MCP server with OAuth, but generic clients cannot just dynamically register: Slack requires a fixed registered app identity and confidential OAuth credentials, plus workspace admin approval. Use that route when you already have an approved Slack app/client ID. For a portable Pi installation, this token-backed REST extension remains the simplest generic fallback.

The cleanest REST setup is interactive and keeps the secret out of the model conversation:

/slack-login

The command uses a masked prompt, validates the credential with the provider, then stores it with 0600 permissions.

$SLACK_BOT_TOKEN (or $SLACK_TOKEN), else ~/.pi/agent/integration-auth.json — written by /slack-login, 0600, beside Pi's own auth.json.

slack_search needs a user token with search:read; a bot token surfaces as a permission error rather than an empty result list, because "no matches" and "your token cannot search" are different answers.

Slack returns HTTP 200 for errors

{"ok": false, "error": "channel_not_found"} with a 200 status, so HTTP success means nothing. Every call checks ok — without it a permissions failure becomes an empty channel list.

Writes ask first

Every write calls Pi's ctx.ui.confirm and shows you the full text before anything leaves your machine.

Where you are	What happens
A Pi TUI session	a confirmation dialog
A host app speaking Pi's RPC protocol	the request arrives as extension_ui_request; the app renders it however it likes
pi -p (non-interactive)	refused, because nobody can be asked. Pass yes: true if you have already decided

That last row matters: in print mode ctx.ui.confirm returns false without prompting, so a naive implementation would report "you declined" when nobody was ever asked. This one tells you which happened.

slack_connect has no yes escape hatch, deliberately. A flag that skips confirmation on a credential-storing tool is one injected instruction away from an attacker's token being used for all your writes.

What it deliberately will not do

Published in describe().refuses, and a test asserts each is genuinely absent from the source — so the list cannot become a lie. Run slack_status to see it.

Using it from your own code

src/ has no Pi dependency, so a UI can render its view models without going through a tool call:

import { SLACK_DESCRIPTION } from "@parke.dev/pi-slack";

SLACK_DESCRIPTION declares every segment, every field on a row, and every refusal — so a UI can render a panel for this provider with no provider-specific code, and a conformance test fails the build if it stops being true.

Status words, never colour alone

Every status is a word a reader can read. Colour is decoration on top. A red dot says nothing to a screen reader, and nothing to someone who cannot distinguish it from the green one.