How to create a shared channel via Slack conversation API? - slack-api

Question

I would like to programmatically create a channel in Slack, make it shared and get the invitatino link. I found two APIS: conversations.create and conversations.invite but they'r only applicable to channels within the workspace. Doesn't seem what I want to do is possible with the Slack APIs currently, but wanted to see if anybody had a work around.

Answer 1

You could use the conversations.inviteShared API method.
This Slack Connect API method creates an invitation to a Slack
Connect channel. The invitation can be sent to users or bots in
another workspace either as a shareable URL or as an email invite.
The invited user must be known to your app (i.e., a channel is already
shared between the organization your app is installed on and the
organization of the user).
If the channel to be joined is not already a Slack Connect channel, it
becomes a Connect channel when you use this method to invite users
from another workspace.
Here's what worked for me:
Step 1: Create a Slack Channel via Vanilla JS
// Headers
const headers = {
'Content-type': 'application/json',
'Accept': 'application/json',
'Authorization': 'Bearer ' + yourAPIToken
}
// Create Slack channel
let create = await fetch('https://slack.com/api/conversations.create', {
method: 'POST',
headers: headers,
body: JSON.stringify({
'team_id': 'CXXXXXXX' // Your team id,
'is_private': true, // Optional. Create a private channel instead of a public one
'name': 'your-channel' // Your desired channel name
})
}).then(response => response.json());
console.log(create);
Step 2: Invite yourself (and/or default users)
This is important. Otherwise no one will see the channel.
// Invite default users
let invite = await fetch('https://slack.com/api/conversations.invite', {
method: 'POST',
headers: headers,
body: JSON.stringify({
channel: create.channel.id,
users: 'XXXXXXXXX,XXXXXXXXX' // A comma separated list of user IDs.
})
}).then(response => response.json());
console.log(invite);
Step 3: Invite external users via email
// Invite default users
// NOTE: The body object wasn't accepted for some reason, so moved it to the URI instead.
let inviteShared = await fetch('https://slack.com/api/conversations.inviteShared?channel='
+ create.channel.id + '&emails='
+ encodeURIComponent('yourExternal#email.com'), {
method: 'POST',
headers: headers,
}).then(response => response.json());
console.log(inviteShared);