Add work objects support #1512

vegeris · 2025-10-07T02:24:35Z

This PR adds the following support for work objects:

Defines the schema for work object metadata
Updates the inputs for chat.unfurl or chat.postMessage to accept entity metadata
Adds the entity_details_requested event
Adds the entity.presentDetails API method
Updates the view_submission event to include work object related properties

Category (place an `x` in each of the `[ ]`)

bolt (Bolt for Java)
bolt-{sub modules} (Bolt for Java - optional modules)
slack-api-client (Slack API Clients)
slack-api-model (Slack API Data Models)
slack-api-*-kotlin-extension (Kotlin Extensions for Slack API Clients)
slack-app-backend (The primitive layer of Bolt for Java)

Requirements

Please read the Contributing guidelines and Code of Conduct before creating this issue or pull request. By submitting, you agree to those rules.

…o feat-work-objects

codecov · 2025-10-17T19:12:11Z

Codecov Report

❌ Patch coverage is 5.88235% with 80 lines in your changes missing coverage. Please review.
✅ Project coverage is 72.69%. Comparing base (d1f005c) to head (1105f3c).

Files with missing lines	Patch %	Lines
...java/com/slack/api/methods/RequestFormBuilder.java	6.32%	72 Missing and 2 partials ⚠️
...slack/api/methods/impl/AsyncMethodsClientImpl.java	0.00%	2 Missing ⚠️
.../com/slack/api/methods/impl/MethodsClientImpl.java	0.00%	2 Missing ⚠️
.../events/handler/EntityDetailsRequestedHandler.java	0.00%	2 Missing ⚠️

❌ Your patch check has failed because the patch coverage (5.88%) is below the target coverage (30.00%). You can increase the patch coverage or adjust the target coverage.

Additional details and impacted files

@@             Coverage Diff              @@
##               main    #1512      +/-   ##
============================================
- Coverage     73.03%   72.69%   -0.35%     
  Complexity     4381     4381              
============================================
  Files           475      476       +1     
  Lines         14222    14293      +71     
  Branches       1447     1456       +9     
============================================
+ Hits          10387    10390       +3     
- Misses         2976     3043      +67     
- Partials        859      860       +1

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vegeris · 2025-10-17T20:26:50Z

docs/japanese/guides/assistants.md

        .threadTs(req.getPayload().getMessage().getThreadTs())
        .text("OK, I will generate numbers for you!")
-        .metadata(new Message.Metadata("assistant-generate-numbers", eventPayload))
+        .metadata(Message.Metadata.builder().eventType("assistant-generate-numbers").eventPayload(eventPayload).build())


Similar to node-slack-sdk, I originally updated the Message.Metadata object that was previously event-metadata-only. Planning on updating this PR to use a separate EntityAndEventMessageMetadata object as well

cc: @zimeg and @mwbrooks to sanity check this; any apps calling chat.postMessage and constructing the Message.Metadata object will need to update that type to Message.EntityAndEventMessageMetadata

🤔 @vegeris This is so interesting! Thank you for calling it out 🙏 ✨

If I'm understanding this right, changing the metadata type from Message.Metadata might error during compilation of app code for this:

Message.Metadata metadata = message.getMetadata();

It makes sense that this argument can be either metadata type for the API but I'm wondering if we workaround changing this in the SDK for now with an additional argument for the method input and generous javadoc too?:

/** * Metadata of entities attached to a message. Used instead of the "metadata" attribute, which sends event-based message metadata. In an upcoming major version, the "metadata" attribute will accept both types of metadata. */ private Message.EntityMessageMetadata entityMessageMetadata;

IIRC we have logic to parse various cases of metadata that can be extended in meantimes-

Thanks for looking into this!

additional argument for the method input

I'm not sure I follow 👀
Edit: Ohh, gotcha; potentially have a separate property for entity+event metadata and check for it in FormBody.Builder toForm(ChatPostMessageRequest req)

I believe @WilliamBergamin is also back this week; it would be great to also get your input 🙏

zimeg

🌟 @vegeris Praises all throughout these changes! I tried to keep comments focused to thoughts and suggestions. This is looking solid!

The metadata typings you've called out caught my attention and I left some rambles on a workaround to avoid changing the existing types. I'm not sure if it's a good idea but I wonder if some changes might be left as TODO for now?

So curious about what you think! I plan to test this more after updates to metadata typings that might be in progress at the moment too 🫡

zimeg · 2025-10-17T22:11:19Z

slack-api-client/src/main/java/com/slack/api/methods/MethodsClient.java

+    // and the Conversations API will become available to classic Slack apps over
+    // the coming months.


🪬 note: TIL!

zimeg · 2025-10-17T22:15:46Z

slack-api-client/src/main/java/com/slack/api/methods/MethodsClient.java

+    // ------------------------------
+    // work object entities
+    // ------------------------------


🧮 quibble: This method might've been renamed in recent times. Can I request a realphabeticalization before merge?

Will do; 'work objects' was the internal name which was potentially going to change (so we were avoiding using it in external API names etc.) but we ended up keeping it

Here I'll just use 'entity' as the header to be consistent with the API naming

slack-api-client/src/main/java/com/slack/api/methods/Methods.java

slack-api-client/src/main/java/com/slack/api/methods/AsyncMethodsClient.java

zimeg · 2025-10-17T22:42:49Z

slack-api-client/src/main/java/com/slack/api/methods/request/chat/ChatUnfurlRequest.java

    // https://docs.slack.dev/changelog/2021-08-changes-to-unfurls
    private String source;

+    private String rawMetadata;


Suggested change

private String rawMetadata;

private String metadataAsString;

🔍 suggestion: To match chat.postMessage formats!

java-slack-sdk/slack-api-client/src/main/java/com/slack/api/methods/request/chat/ChatPostMessageRequest.java

Line 66 in e3f79e0

private String metadataAsString;

📚 suggestion: Adding similar javadoc might be nice too?

No strong feelings but I called it rawMetadata to be consistent with the naming for the unfurls param (unfurls and rawUnfurls)

(Added a javadoc comment!)

zimeg · 2025-10-17T23:10:17Z

docs/japanese/guides/assistants.md

        .threadTs(req.getPayload().getMessage().getThreadTs())
        .text("OK, I will generate numbers for you!")
-        .metadata(new Message.Metadata("assistant-generate-numbers", eventPayload))
+        .metadata(Message.Metadata.builder().eventType("assistant-generate-numbers").eventPayload(eventPayload).build())


🤔 @vegeris This is so interesting! Thank you for calling it out 🙏 ✨

If I'm understanding this right, changing the metadata type from Message.Metadata might error during compilation of app code for this:

Message.Metadata metadata = message.getMetadata();

It makes sense that this argument can be either metadata type for the API but I'm wondering if we workaround changing this in the SDK for now with an additional argument for the method input and generous javadoc too?:

/** * Metadata of entities attached to a message. Used instead of the "metadata" attribute, which sends event-based message metadata. In an upcoming major version, the "metadata" attribute will accept both types of metadata. */ private Message.EntityMessageMetadata entityMessageMetadata;

IIRC we have logic to parse various cases of metadata that can be extended in meantimes-

slack-api-client/src/main/java/com/slack/api/methods/RequestFormBuilder.java

zimeg · 2025-10-17T23:15:01Z

...i-client/src/main/java/com/slack/api/methods/request/entity/EntityPresentDetailsRequest.java

+     * JSON object containing the data that will be displayed in the flexpane for
+     * the entity.
+     */
+    private String rawMetadata;


Suggested change

private String rawMetadata;

private String metadataAsString;

🧵 suggestion: To match another comment, but I also think duplicating the javadoc for the more explicit typings that follow might be solid too for reference generation? I haven't experimented with such edge-

zimeg · 2025-10-17T23:17:59Z

slack-api-model/src/main/java/com/slack/api/model/Attachment.java

    private String mimetype;
    private String url;
    private AttachmentMetadata metadata;
+    private Object workObjectEntity;


👾 question: Is this particular to a specific Object import, or can it be cast to something else? IIRC adjustments to these models are common if fields are adjusted, but having such type might make accessing easier?

The work object attachment is the internal client schema, which we don't want users to consume, but in the integration test for chat.unfurl I'm verifying that the work object was successfully added by checking for this property

vegeris · 2025-10-19T21:18:14Z

slack-api-client/src/test/java/test_with_remote_apis/methods/chat_Test.java

        }
-    }
-
-    String blocksAsString = "[\n" +


Looks like my formatter in VSCode updated this whole file; is there a particular formatter I should be using? (My current default is Language Support for Java(TM) by Red Hat)

…o feat-work-objects

vegeris · 2025-10-19T22:38:45Z

json-logs/samples/api/conversations.list.json

  "provided": "",
-  "arg": ""
+  "arg": "",
+  "callstack": ""


Should the callstack param be left out of these json-logs files? (I don't see it included for any other APIs)

vegeris force-pushed the feat-work-objects branch 2 times, most recently from 4d45e21 to 0c5ae6a Compare October 8, 2025 00:07

Add work objects support

8be1e14

vegeris force-pushed the feat-work-objects branch from 0c5ae6a to 8be1e14 Compare October 8, 2025 02:59

vegeris added 4 commits October 8, 2025 13:12

Merge branch 'main' of https://github.com/slackapi/java-slack-sdk int…

3419935

…o feat-work-objects

need to update these json-logs?

74cffd4

Merge branch 'main' of https://github.com/slackapi/java-slack-sdk int…

1be7dc2

…o feat-work-objects

update

e01e566

vegeris force-pushed the feat-work-objects branch from 8270f1a to dcc9b69 Compare October 17, 2025 20:18

vegeris marked this pull request as ready for review October 17, 2025 20:24

vegeris commented Oct 17, 2025

View reviewed changes

update view_submission properties

8ea0ffc

vegeris force-pushed the feat-work-objects branch from dcc9b69 to 8ea0ffc Compare October 17, 2025 20:44

zimeg reviewed Oct 17, 2025

View reviewed changes

zimeg added enhancement M-T: A feature request for new functionality project:slack-api-client project:slack-api-client project:slack-api-model project:slack-api-model project:slack-app-backend labels Oct 17, 2025

vegeris commented Oct 19, 2025

View reviewed changes

vegeris force-pushed the feat-work-objects branch from 03b1b45 to c18db30 Compare October 19, 2025 22:25

alphabetize

55656ec

vegeris force-pushed the feat-work-objects branch from c18db30 to 55656ec Compare October 19, 2025 22:30

Merge branch 'main' of https://github.com/slackapi/java-slack-sdk int…

e61311f

…o feat-work-objects

vegeris commented Oct 19, 2025

View reviewed changes

update test

1105f3c

vegeris force-pushed the feat-work-objects branch from 34d137b to 1105f3c Compare October 19, 2025 23:12

		// and the Conversations API will become available to classic Slack apps over
		// the coming months.

Add work objects support #1512

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