Slack

LynxJournal can notify Slack every time a scheduled roundup run happens, using a Slack Bot Token. Two independent targets are supported from the same token: a channel message and a personal message (DM to a specific person). This works alongside the existing email and Discord notifications.

Where to find it

Go to LynxJournal › Schedule in the WordPress admin menu. In the Notifications section, open the Slack tab, where you’ll find:

• Slack Bot Token — always visible.
• Post to a Slack channel after each run — checkbox, with a Slack channel ID field below it.
• Send me a Slack DM after each run — checkbox, with a Slack user ID field below it.

The channel ID and user ID fields are always visible too; they’re only required when their corresponding checkbox is checked.

Both can be enabled at the same time, independently — channel only, DM only, both, or neither.

Why a bot token instead of a webhook

Discord notifications use a webhook URL, which always posts to one fixed place. Slack notifications need to reach two different, independently configurable destinations (a channel and a specific person), so LynxJournal uses a Slack Bot Token with Slack’s chat.postMessage API instead — one token can post to any channel or DM the bot has access to.

Setting up a Slack Bot Token

You need a Slack App with a bot token before you can enable either option:

1. Go to api.slack.com/apps and click Create New App → From scratch. Name it (e.g. “LynxJournal”) and pick your workspace.
2. Slack may prompt you to Generate an app-level token (under Basic Information → App-Level Tokens) with scopes like connections:write. That’s for Socket Mode/WebSocket features and isn’t needed here — skip/close it. LynxJournal only calls Slack’s Web API over plain HTTPS.
3. Under OAuth & Permissions, scroll to Scopes → Bot Token Scopes and add:
4. chat:write — required for both channel and DM messages.
5. Click Install to Workspace (top of the OAuth & Permissions page) and approve.
6. Copy the Bot User OAuth Token — it starts with xoxb-.
7. For the channel message: invite the bot to the target channel in Slack (/invite @YourAppName in that channel), and get the channel ID (in Slack, open the channel → View channel details → the ID is shown near the bottom, or in the channel’s URL).
8. For the DM: no invite needed, but the recipient’s Slack user ID is required (in Slack, open their profile → More → Copy member ID).

Enabling it

1. Paste the bot token into Slack Bot Token (it’s masked like a password field, since it grants broader access than a single-channel webhook and is shared by both options below).
2. To post to a channel: check Post to a Slack channel after each run and paste the channel ID.
3. To DM someone: check Send me a Slack DM after each run and paste their user ID.
4. Click Save Schedule.

If a checkbox is checked but its required field (token, or the channel/user ID) is missing or malformed, saving fails with a validation error — nothing is stored until it’s fixed.

Accepted ID formats

• Bot token: must start with xoxb-.
• Channel ID: starts with C (public channel) or G (private channel), e.g. C0123456789.
• User ID: starts with U, e.g. U0123456789.

Channel/DM names (like #general or @someone) are not accepted — Slack IDs are required, not display names.

When it fires

Same trigger point as email and Discord: right after a scheduled run actually creates or attempts to create a roundup post. This only happens once the schedule’s trigger condition is met (e.g. daily mode with at least one pending link, or count/age mode once enough links have accumulated). If a run happens but there’s nothing to publish yet, no Slack message is sent at all — there’s simply nothing to report.

What the message looks like

LynxJournal sends a Slack Block Kit message (not plain text):

• If a roundup was published: a header with the post’s title, a section with a “View post” link to the published post, and a line showing the link count and which schedule mode ran.
• If a run reached the point of creating a post but that post creation failed (rare): a header noting the schedule ran, with a line explaining no post was published. This is distinct from “no pending links yet”, which sends nothing at all (see above).

If both the channel and DM options are enabled, you’ll get two separate messages — one to the channel, one as a DM — for the same run.

If something goes wrong

Sending to Slack is “fire and forget”: if the bot token is revoked, the channel/user ID is wrong, the bot isn’t in the channel, or the request otherwise fails, the notification is silently skipped — no retry, no error shown in WordPress. This never affects the roundup publish itself; a failed Slack notification never blocks or breaks a scheduled run.

Common causes of a missing message:

• The bot hasn’t been invited to the target channel (channel messages only — DMs don’t need an invite).
• The bot token was regenerated/revoked in the Slack App settings.
• The channel or user ID was mistyped or copied from the wrong workspace.

If messages stop arriving, double-check the bot is still in the channel and the token/IDs are current, then re-save the Schedule page.