An Update on Workspace Apps

Artwork by Gaby Saravia and Rosie Bubb.

TL;DR: Based on your feedback, we’re making a change: we will be bringing the benefits of Workspace Apps to bot tokens instead of requiring developers to migrate apps to a new token type.

We’d like to say thank you to those of you who have given us feedback on workspace apps during API Preview — we truly appreciate your time and insights. With this preview, we set out to get feedback on a model that would improve app stability, control and security using a new “workspace” token (xoxa).

From our conversations with you, we’ve come to understand that we need to simplify workspace apps. You want features that workspace apps delivered, but you also want a more intuitive migration path that is simpler to understand and faster to execute. We’re listening, and here is how your feedback is informing our path forward.

We are changing course and doing away with workspace tokens in favor of a simpler approach that will iterate on existing token types — specifically, user tokens and bot tokens — bringing the benefits of workspace apps to our existing app framework. Other platform releases will not be affected by our progress.

Here’s what we’re tackling next to make apps indispensable for our largest and most complex customers:

• Reliability: reduce unexpected uninstallation for both Directory apps and internal integrations
• Security: extend token rotation and short-lived tokens to apps built with bot tokens
• Permissions: create a more granular permissions model for bot tokens
• Administration: build better tools for teams to manage apps, starting with APIs
• Org-level deploy: enable customers to deploy and manage apps across many workspaces

What this means for you

As of today, the creation of new workspace apps will be disabled. Apps that use workspace tokens will continue to run for the next calendar year until October 10, 2019. In this interim period, documentation for workspace apps will still be available, but we will not be investing substantial resources in bug fixes or new feature development.

If you were testing the workspace token (xoxa), we recommend that you move toward user and bot token compatibility so you can take advantage of these forthcoming improvements.

Staying up to date

As we work through the designs for the token types and API methods that future Slack apps will use, expect to hear from us regularly with an update on our progress. We’d also love to have you join us in person over the next few months:

• Bay Area developers: Join us on October 16 to discuss these changes and the future of Slack’s platform with our team.
• European developers: Join the platform team at events in various European cities this November.
• Global developers: Sign up for virtual office hours with the Slack Devrel team.

As always, our developer support team is here for your questions, feedback and ideas. Shoot us a note at feedback@slack.com.