notifier: Slack DM channel (depends on deeper Slack integration)
Nobody has claimed this yet.
Assessment
- Difficulty
- 4/5
- Estimated time
- 3-5 days
- Newbie friendliness
- 42/100
- Issue type
- Feature
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Activity status
- Quiet
- Tech stack
- typescript
Research direction
Start with apps/api/src/notify/index.ts and issue #82 to understand the existing notifier contract and email flow. Read specs/api/saml.md and specs/behaviors/help-wanted-roles.md before choosing the Slack credential and delivery behavior. Done means Slack DM delivery, handle resolution, fallback or combined delivery, SLACK_BOT_TOKEN configuration, and matching failure logging are implemented.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Description
Follow-up from #82
#82 wires up a real notifier for help-wanted-role events (interest expressed, role filled). The agreed-on first-cut shape is email-only via Resend — covered in that issue.
This issue tracks the Slack DM channel, deliberately deferred until we tackle deeper Slack integration.
Why deferred
The Notifier interface in apps/api/src/notify/index.ts already accepts maintainerSlackHandle per notification, so the data flow is ready. What's missing is the credential trust — sending a DM from a workspace bot requires either:
- A workspace-installed Slack app with
chat:writescope + a bot token (the easiest path). - SAML IdP-side identity assertions extended to support delegated Slack actions (much heavier).
We're already the SAML IdP for codeforphilly.slack.com (specs/api/saml.md), but that's an inbound SAML flow (user signs into Slack via us). Sending DMs out to Slack is the inverse — we'd be initiating a workspace action on a member's behalf. Cleaner to do that via a dedicated Slack app with its own token.
Scope (when picked up)
- Add a
SlackDmNotifierimplementation alongsideEmailNotifier. - A new env var (
SLACK_BOT_TOKEN) — sealed-secret in the cluster repo. - Map Slack handles → user IDs via
users.lookupByEmail(orusers.listcached) since handles can change. Skip if the handle doesn't resolve. - Compound notifier: try Slack DM first, fall back to email if Slack delivery fails or the recipient has no Slack handle. (Or run both — pick when implementing.)
- Failure logging at the same envelope as today's notifier.
Related
- #82 — email-only first cut
specs/behaviors/help-wanted-roles.md— what gets delivered
- Dominant language
- TypeScript
- Stars
- 1
- Forks
- 1
- Avg merge
- 1d 20h
- Merged PRs (30d)
- 25
Contributor guide
No contributing guide indexed for this repository
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
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