---
layout: page
title: "Slack"
description: "Instructions on how to add Slack notifications to Home Assistant."
date: 2015-08-06 18:00
sidebar: true
comments: false
sharing: true
footer: true
logo: slack.png
ha_category: Notifications
ha_release: pre 0.7
---


The `slack` platform allows you to deliver notifications from Home Assistant to [Slack](https://slack.com/).

If you are planning to use Slack as yourself then you need to obtain a [Slack API token](https://api.slack.com/web?sudo=1) to be able to send notifications.

It is also possible to use Slack bots as users. Just create a new bot at https://[YOUR_TEAM].slack.com/apps/build/custom-integration and use the provided token for that. You can add an icon from the frontend for Home Assistant and give the bot a meaningful name.

Don't forget to invite the bot to the room where you want to get the notifications.

To enable the Slack notification in your installation, add the following to your `configuration.yaml` file:

```yaml
# Example configuration.yaml entry
notify:
  - name: NOTIFIER_NAME
    platform: slack
    api_key: ABCDEFGHJKLMNOPQRSTUVXYZ
    default_channel: '#general'
```

Configuration variables:

- **name** (*Optional*): Setting the optional parameter `name` allows multiple notifiers to be created. The default value is `notify`. The notifier will bind to the service `notify.NOTIFIER_NAME`.
- **api_key** (*Required*): The Slack API token to use for sending Slack messages.
- **default_channel** (*Required*): The default channel to post to if no channel is explicitly specified when sending the notification message.  A channel can be specified adding a target attribute to the json at the same level as "message"
- **username** (*Optional*): Setting username will allow Home Assistant to post to Slack using the username specified. By default not setting this will post to Slack using the user account or botname that you generated the api_key as.
- **icon** (*Optional*): Use one of the Slack emojis as an Icon for the supplied username.  Slack uses the standard emoji sets used [here](http://www.webpagefx.com/tools/emoji-cheat-sheet/).

### {% linkable_title Slack service data %}

The following attributes can be placed inside `data` for extended functionality.

| Service data attribute | Optional | Description |
| ---------------------- | -------- | ----------- |
| `file`                 |      yes | Groups the attributes for file upload. If present, either `url` or `path` have to be provided.
| `path `                |      yes | Local path of file, photo etc to post to slack. Is placed inside `file`.
| `url`                  |      yes | URL of file, photo etc to post to slack. Is placed inside `file`.
| `username`             |      yes | Username if the url requires authentication. Is placed inside `file`.
| `password`             |      yes | Password if the url requires authentication. Is placed inside `file`.
| `auth`                 |      yes | If set to `digest` HTTP-Digest-Authentication is used. If missing HTTP-BASIC-Authentication is used. Is placed inside `file`.
| `attachments`          |      yes | Array of [Slack attachments](https://api.slack.com/docs/message-attachments). See [the attachment documentation](https://api.slack.com/docs/message-attachments) for how to format. *NOTE*: if using `attachments`, they are shown **in addition** to `message`

Example for posting file from URL:

```json
{
  "message":"Message that will be added as a comment to the file.",
  "title":"Title of the file.",
  "target": ["#channelname"], 
  "data":{
    "file":{
      "url":"http://[url to file, photo, security camera etc]",
      "username":"optional user, if necessary",
      "password":"optional password, if necessary",
      "auth":"digest"
    }
  }
}
```

Example for posting file from local path:

```json
{
  "message":"Message that will be added as a comment to the file.",
  "title":"Title of the file.",
  "data":{
    "file":{
      "path":"/path/to/file.ext"
    }
  }
}
```
Please note that `path` is validated against the `whitelist_external_dirs` in the `configuration.yaml`.

Example for posting formatted attachment:

```json
{
  "message": "",
  "data": {
    "attachments": [
      {
        "title": "WHAT A HORRIBLE NIGHT TO HAVE A CURSE.",
        "image_url": "http://i.imgur.com/JEExnsI.gif"
      }
    ]
  }
}
```

Please note that both `message` is a required key, but is always shown, so use an empty (`""`) string for `message` if you don't want the extra text.

To use notifications, please see the [getting started with automation page](/getting-started/automation/).