equanimous-meow

Contains several scripts and other resources for Slack.

NOTE: This repository has been ARCHIVED - Slack now uses OAuth instead of token-based authentication, so the authentication methods in this repository are no longer supported.

Quick jump:

• Slack archive tool: slackarchive.py
  • Installation steps
  • Slack API token
  • How to run
    • Arguments
  • Making excerpts
    • Inputs
  • Expansion ideas

Slack archive tool

slackarchive.py is a Python2-based archiving tool for Slack that archives all public channel content.

History-stitching is a feature of this script. Stitching is performed by taking multiple possibly-overlapping history dumps from Slack and organizing them into one continuous history file. This process includes any prior continuous history file as a starting point.

This script is also able to make time-bounded excerpts of specific channels in human-readable text form (without reactji).

Installation steps

1. Clone the repository locally
2. Generate a Slack API token for Slack you want to archive, if it doesn't already exist (below)

Slack API token

A token is necessary to be able to use the Slack API.

Generate a Slack token at: https://api.slack.com/web

Without a command-line argument, a token.txt file with a Slack API token string is expected to be located in the root save folder at

DEFAULT_PATH/DEFAULT_SAVE_FOLDER/TOKEN_FILENAME

Default path is: $USER/SavedHistory/slacktoken.txt or ~/SavedHistory/slacktoken.txt

How to run

Run the script with any options as below

python slackarchive.py <arguments>

Arguments

• -t <token>, --token <token>
  • Specify a (text) user token, overrides any saved token in root path
• -hist, --history-only
  • Perform history-stitching only, no message retrieval. This can be done offline as it only uses local files.
• -arch, --archive-only
  • Perform message retrieval/archiving only, skip history stitching.
• -r <path>, --root-path <path>
  • Specifies root path for non-specified token and save folder. Default is user home directory; $USER/ or ~ depending on operating system.
• -d <foldername>, --dest-name <foldername>
  • Specifies a name for the save folder at the root path. Default is SavedHistory.

Making excerpts

Currently, this is not available from the command line, only by importing the script and running it inside a shell.

from slackarchive import makeExcerpt
makeExcerpt(channel, dest, token, tstart=0, tstop=-1, outfile=EXCERPT_FILENAME)

Creates a readable excerpt of a history file from the given start time to the stop time. Does not include reactji. The output generated looks like a chat transcript for easy reading.

Inputs

Required:

• channel: the channel name or ID to excerpt from
• dest: destination directory (generally the top-level SavedHistory folder)
• token: Slack token string

Optional:

• tstart: time to start excerpt (default: 0 = the beginning of time)
• tstop: time to stop excerpt (default: -1 = present)
• outfile: optional filename (default: EXCERPT_FILENAME = "_excerpt.txt")

NOTE: If outfile is used, put it in another dest folder or future history stitching will object to invalid formatting

Expansion ideas

• Better JSON parsing and output formatting
• Additional command-line arguments for more customizable saving structures without editing code
• Safer input handling and perform proper unicode translation
• Improve message request response fault detection and add error handling to the different types of requests
• When loading directories, parse for specific exception type that occurs when attempting to os.makedirs(<path>) a path that exists so we don't ignore unexpected exceptions
• Add @mention name lookup when parsing text into user names inside messages
• When excerpting, make history stitching ignore invalid files
• Command-line support for making an excerpt