Create modal in slack using python

Question

I am using the python slack bolt. https://api.slack.com/start/building/bolt-python#create

I created the example in the link and was able to make a home tab page but I want to create a modal from a message in a channel, not a home page view. I have looked everywhere for a basic example but I can't get any MODALS to work with what I have learned from slack's own documentation. This is the only examples I can find (which came from slack's own documentation after you read the starting out page).

Here is the test example that works but shows up with a home page instead of a modal:

SLACK_BOT_TOKEN="slackbottokenstring"
SLACK_SIGNING_SECRET="slacksigningsecretstring"

import os
# Use the package we installed
from slack_bolt import App

# Initializes your app with your bot token and signing secret
app = App(
    token = SLACK_BOT_TOKEN,
    signing_secret = SLACK_SIGNING_SECRET
    # token=os.environ.get("SLACK_BOT_TOKEN"),
    # signing_secret=os.environ.get("SLACK_SIGNING_SECRET")
)

# Add functionality here
@app.event("app_home_opened")
def update_home_tab(client, event, logger):
  try:
    # views.publish is the method that your app uses to push a view to the Home tab
    client.views_publish(
      # the user that opened your app's app home
      user_id=event["user"],
      # the view object that appears in the app home
      view={
        "type": "home",
        "callback_id": "home_view",

        # body of the view
        "blocks": [
          {
            "type": "section",
            "text": {
              "type": "mrkdwn",
              "text": "*Welcome to your _App's Home_* :tada:"
            }
          },
          {
            "type": "divider"
          },
          {
            "type": "section",
            "text": {
              "type": "mrkdwn",
              "text": "This button won't do much for now but you can set up a listener for it using the `actions()` method and passing its unique `action_id`. See an example in the `examples` folder within your Bolt app."
            }
          },
          {
            "type": "actions",
            "elements": [
              {
                "type": "button",
                "text": {
                  "type": "plain_text",
                  "text": "Click me!"
                }
              }
            ]
          }
        ]
      }
    )
  
  except Exception as e:
    logger.error(f"Error publishing home tab: {e}")


# Start your app
if __name__ == "__main__":
    app.start(port=int(os.environ.get("PORT", 3000)))

And that works:

But if I try to change it to a modal, it fails: CODE:

@app.event("app_home_opened")
def update_home_tab(client, event, logger):
  try:
    # views.publish is the method that your app uses to push a view to the Home tab
    client.views_publish(
      # the user that opened your app's app home
      user_id=event["user"],
      # the view object that appears in the app home
      view={
  "type": "modal",
  "callback_id": "modal-identifier",
  "title": {
    "type": "plain_text",
    "text": "Just a modal"
  },
  "blocks": [
    {
      "type": "section",
      "block_id": "section-identifier",
      "text": {
        "type": "mrkdwn",
        "text": "*Welcome* to ~my~ Block Kit _modal_!"
      },
      "accessory": {
        "type": "button",
        "text": {
          "type": "plain_text",
          "text": "Just a button",
        },
        "action_id": "button-identifier",
      }
    }
  ],
}
    )

Error:

127.0.0.1 - - [14/Aug/2022 15:21:15] "POST /slack/events HTTP/1.1" 200 -
Error publishing home tab: The request to the Slack API failed. (url: https://www.slack.com/api/views.publish)
The server responded with: {'ok': False, 'error': 'invalid_arguments', 'response_metadata': {'messages': ['[ERROR] failed to match all allowed schemas [json-pointer:/view]', '[ERROR] unsupported type: modal [json-pointer:/view/type]']}} 

I am following the view structure design in a json object like it says here: https://api.slack.com/surfaces/modals/using#composing_views

Answer 1

I figured out what I had to do but it was kinda annoying, I want to just say that first. There are a couple reasons as to why it was annoying to figure out.

1. There is no direct python example from the website, BUT slack does have a github where they show a modal example.
2. Using specifically Modals require than just making text blocks in a chat. It requires some weird thing called a trigger_id which you get from initiating a specific response that would cause slack to send an object over to your endpoint. The problem is that there is no example of this. If you are going through slack's tutorial, they ONLY show you how to create a url for making a bot that event listens and responds to messages. You can make your own url using flask but since I am using the bolt slack module, they wrap there own stuff around flask which makes it hard to make basic decorators for flask. - In other words, the slack documentation is super confusing for modals and they don't have any real examples for modals with bolt python.

after doing days of research in my spare time, I was finally able to get an example working where you can COPY AND PASTE this code. You just need your bot token secret and signing key which you can set in your environment or as a string if you are just testing around in your local computer.

SLACK_BOT_TOKEN="slackbottokenstring"
SLACK_SIGNING_SECRET="slacksigningsecretstring"

import os
# Use the package we installed
from slack_bolt import App
from slack_bolt.adapter.flask import SlackRequestHandler
from flask import Flask, request

flask_app = Flask(__name__)

# Initializes your app with your bot token and signing secret
app = App(
    token = SLACK_BOT_TOKEN,
    signing_secret = SLACK_SIGNING_SECRET
    # token=os.environ.get("SLACK_BOT_TOKEN"),
    # signing_secret=os.environ.get("SLACK_SIGNING_SECRET")
)
handler = SlackRequestHandler(app)

@flask_app.route("/slack/events", methods=["POST"])
def slack_events():
    return handler.handle(request)

@app.shortcut("SearchMessagesID")
def handle_shortcuts(ack, body, logger,client):
    ack()
    logger.info(body)
    print(body)

    res = client.views_open(
        trigger_id=body["trigger_id"],
    view={
  "type": "modal",
  "callback_id": "modal-identifier",
  "title": {
    "type": "plain_text",
    "text": "Just a modal"
  },
  "blocks": [
    {
      "type": "section",
      "block_id": "section-identifier",
      "text": {
        "type": "mrkdwn",
        "text": "*Welcome* to ~my~ Block Kit _modal_!"
      },
      "accessory": {
        "type": "button",
        "text": {
          "type": "plain_text",
          "text": "Just a button",
        },
        "action_id": "button-identifier",
      }
    }
  ],
}
    )

# Start your app
if __name__ == "__main__":
    app.start(port=int(os.environ.get("PORT", 3000)))