This package supports Node v18 and higher. It's highly recommended to use the latest LTS version of node, and the documentation is written using syntax and features from that version.

Installation

$ npm install @slack/socket-mode

Usage

Initialize the client

The package exports a SocketModeClient class. Your app will create an instance of the class for each workspace it communicates with. Creating an instance requires an app-level token from Slack. Apps connect to the Socket Mode API using an app-level token, which starts with xapp.

Note: Socket Mode requires the connections:write scope. Navigate to your app configuration and go to the bottom of the Basic Information section to create an App token with the connections:write scope.

const { SocketModeClient } = require('@slack/socket-mode');

// Read a token from the environment variables
const appToken = process.env.SLACK_APP_TOKEN;

// Initialize
const client = new SocketModeClient({appToken});

Connect to Slack

Connecting is as easy as calling the .start() method.

const { SocketModeClient } = require('@slack/socket-mode');
const appToken = process.env.SLACK_APP_TOKEN;

const socketModeClient = new SocketModeClient({appToken});

(async () => {
  // Connect to Slack
  await socketModeClient.start();
})();

Listen for an event

If you've used Node's EventEmitter pattern before, then you're already familiar with how this works, since the client is an EventEmitter.

The event argument passed to the listener is an object. Its contents correspond to the type of event it's registered for.

const { SocketModeClient } = require('@slack/socket-mode');
const appToken = process.env.SLACK_APP_TOKEN;

const socketModeClient = new SocketModeClient({appToken});

// Attach listeners to events by type. See: https://docs.slack.dev/reference/events/message
socketModeClient.on('message', (event) => {
  console.log(event);
});

(async () => {
  await socketModeClient.start();
})();

Send a message

To respond to events and send messages back into Slack, we recommend using the @slack/web-api package with a bot token.

const { SocketModeClient } = require('@slack/socket-mode');
const { WebClient } = require('@slack/web-api');

const socketModeClient = new SocketModeClient(process.env.SLACK_APP_TOKEN);
const webClient = new WebClient(process.env.BOT_TOKEN);

// Attach listeners to events by type. See: https://docs.slack.dev/reference/events/message
socketModeClient.on('member_joined_channel', async ({event, body, ack}) => {
    try {
      // send acknowledgement back to slack over the socketMode websocket connection
      // this is so slack knows you have received the event and are processing it
      await ack();
      await webClient.chat.postMessage({
          blocks: [
          {
            type: 'section',
            text: {
              type: 'mrkdwn',
              text: `Welcome to the channel, <@${event.user}>. We're here to help. Let us know if you have an issue.`,
            },
            accessory: {
              type: 'button',
              text: {
                type: 'plain_text',
                text: 'Get Help',
              },
              value: 'get_help',
            },
          },
        ],
        channel: event.channel,
      });
    } catch (error) {
      console.log('An error occurred', error);
    }
  });
  
(async () => {
  await socketModeClient.start();
})();

Lifecycle events

The client's connection to Slack has a lifecycle. This means the client can be seen as a state machine which transitions through a few states as it connects, disconnects and possibly reconnects with Slack. The client emits an event for each state it transitions to throughout its lifecycle. If your app simply needs to know whether the client is connected or not, the .connected boolean property can be checked.

In the table below, the client's states are listed, which are also the names of the events you can use to observe the transition to that state. The table also includes descriptions for the states and arguments that a listener would receive.

Event Name	Arguments	Description
`connecting`		The client is in the process of connecting to the platform.
`connected`		The client is connected to the platform and incoming events will start being emitted.
`disconnecting`		The client is no longer connected to the platform and cleaning up its resources. It will soon transition to `disconnected`.
`reconnecting`		The client is no longer connected to the platform and cleaning up its resources. It will soon transition to `connecting`.
`disconnected`	`(error)`	The client is not connected to the platform. This is a steady state - no attempt to connect is occurring. The `error` argument will be `undefined` when the client initiated the disconnect (normal).

The client also emits events that are part of its lifecycle, but aren't states. Instead, they represent specific moments that might be helpful to your app. The following table lists these events, their description, and includes the arguments that a listener would receive.

Event Name	Arguments	Description
`error`	`(error)`	An error has occurred.
`slack_event`	`(eventType, event)`	An incoming Slack event has been received.

Logging

The SocketModeClient will log information to the console by default. You can use the logLevel to decide how much or what kind of information should be output. There are a few possible log levels, which you can find in the LogLevel export. By default, the value is set to LogLevel.INFO. While you're in development, it's sometimes helpful to set this to the most verbose: LogLevel.DEBUG.

// Import LogLevel from the package
const { SocketModeClient, LogLevel } = require('@slack/socket-mode');
const appToken = process.env.SLACK_APP_TOKEN;

// Log level is one of the options you can set in the constructor
const socketModeClient = new SocketModeClient({
  appToken,
  logLevel: LogLevel.DEBUG,
});

(async () => {
  await socketModeClient.start();
})();

All the log levels, in order of most to least information are: DEBUG, INFO, WARN, and ERROR.

Sending log output somewhere besides the console

You can also choose to have logs sent to a custom logger using the logger option. A custom logger needs to implement specific methods (known as the Logger interface, see the @slack/logger package for details). A minimal interface should implement the following methods:

Method	Parameters	Return type
`getLevel()`	n/a	`LogLevel`
`setLevel()`	`level: LogLevel`	`void`
`setName()`	`name: string`	`void`
`debug()`	`...msgs: any[]`	`void`
`info()`	`...msgs: any[]`	`void`
`warn()`	`...msgs: any[]`	`void`
`error()`	`...msgs: any[]`	`void`

A very simple custom logger might ignore the name and level, and write all messages to a file.

const { createWriteStream } = require('fs');
const logWritable = createWriteStream('/var/my_log_file'); // Not shown: close this stream

const socketModeClient = new SocketModeClient({
  appToken,
  // Creating a logger as a literal object. It's more likely that you'd create a class.
  logger: {
    debug(...msgs): { logWritable.write('debug: ' + JSON.stringify(msgs)); },
    info(...msgs): { logWritable.write('info: ' + JSON.stringify(msgs)); },
    warn(...msgs): { logWritable.write('warn: ' + JSON.stringify(msgs)); },
    error(...msgs): { logWritable.write('error: ' + JSON.stringify(msgs)); },
    getLevel(): { return 'info'; },
    setLevel(): { },
    setName(): { },
  },
});

(async () => {
  await socketModeClient.start();
})();

Getting Help

If you get stuck, we're here to help. The following are the best ways to get assistance working through your issue:

Issue Tracker for questions, feature requests, bug reports and general discussion related to these packages. Try searching before you create a new issue.

Keywords

FAQs

What is @slack/socket-mode?

Is @slack/socket-mode popular?

Is @slack/socket-mode well maintained?

Package last updated on 25 Aug 2025

Did you know?

Socket for GitHub automatically highlights issues in each pull request and monitors the health of all your open source dependencies. Discover the contents of your packages and block harmful activity before you install or update your dependencies.

Install

@slack/socket-mode