( GET would be also work with our implementation). Any server that is running PHP will do in this case. Now, we need to set up an web endpoint for Slack to hit.

Any text that comes back from this HTTP request will be displayed to you from Slackbot. Slash commands send out an HTTP request (we'll use POST) to the URL of your choice with a payload which includes any arguments you passed to the command. Let's name it something simple like /gif. At the bottom of this panel, you'll find the DIY. How to add a Slack Slash Commandįirst, log in to your Slack account and head to your Integrations settings panel. Best of all, Slackbot will prompt the Google Advanced Image Search link only to you, so you'll be keeping your channel tidy and your clever GIF searches secret. Once we're done with this project, you'll be able to retrieve a link for a custom GIF search, using only /gif awesome gif search terms. I figured that everyone else at Tighten could benefit from Advanced Image Search, so why not try to program something into Slack? Turns out this project took less time than to write this post, so I thought I'd share the process with you.

I was fast, but it still took at least seven distinct actions to get the perfect GIF pasted into Slack. But Giphy's (lack of) intelligence meant the humor mainly came from how poorly Giphy matched what you were trying to get a GIF of.Īt this point, I became a ninja at rapidly searching for GIFs using Google Advanced Image Search. And on that day there was great Sadness.įor a time after transitioning to Slack, we used the Giphy Integration. Unfortunately, due to various maintenance reasons (and the removal of the free tier on Heroku), Goodbot was retired. Goodbot stood as a primary purveyer of semi-topical GIFs to lighten our days. When we moved to Slack, our HUBOT (which we named named Goodbot, because it was a good bot) moved with us. Like many Campfire-enabled teams, we had a HUBOT that we used for primarily silly purposes. Once upon a time, Tighten-an entirely distributed team-did all of our chatting in Campfire.

Slack add gifs