In this 6-week Bit Camp co-hosted by Slack, students will be introduced to the Slack Platform and learn how to create Slack apps using Bolt for JavaScript. After setting up a basic Slack app, students will continue to add new features each week, including implementing third-party APIs and making use of Webhooks.

Week 1 - The Basics

Students will receive an introduction to the Slack Platform, including learning what a Slack app is, getting familiar with the most used methods of Slack’s Web API, and how Bolt speeds up the development of Slack apps. Students will then create a basic Slack app that listens for and responds to a phrase or word in the channel their app is a part of.‍

Topics Covered

• Bolt for JavaScript
• Creating a Slack app
• Messages

Week 2 - Polling Feature

Students will implement a poll into their app, accessible via Shortcuts. The shortcut will trigger a modal where the user can provide the question they’d like to ask and the available answers that users can select. Upon submission of the modal, the poll will then be posted in the channel it was triggered in.

Topics Covered

• Shortcuts
• Modals
• Block Kit

Week 3 - Reaction-Based Translator

Students will build a reaction-based translation feature by introducing a new listener for message reactions. After translating the message according to the reaction that was used, the app will respond with the resulting translation in thread.

Topics Covered

• Listening for reactions
• Responding in threads

Week 4 - GitHub Integration‍

Using Webhooks, students will extend their Bolt app to listen for incoming events related to a Github repository. We’ll also enable the app Home Tab and will pull additional information to display all outstanding Github Issues for the repository.

Topics Covered    

• Custom HTTP Routes
• Webhooks
• App Home Tab

Weeks 5-6 - Final Project
Students will build custom slack apps using the concepts learned in weeks 1-4.