slackcat is a command line tool that posts messages to Slack.

$ echo "hello" | slackcat

If you have a working go installation run go get github.com/paulhammond/slackcat. Prebuilt binaries will be provided soon.

First, create a new Slack Incoming Webhook integration.

Then create a /etc/slackcat.conf file, and add your new webhook url:

{
    "webhook_url":"https://my.slack.com/services/hooks/incoming-webhook?token=token"
}

If you don't have permission to create /etc/slackcat.conf then you can create ~/.slackcat.conf instead.

slackcat will take each line from stdin and post it as a message to Slack:

tail -F logfile | slackcat

If you'd prefer to provide a message on the command line, you can:

sleep 300; slackcat "done"

By default slackcat will post each message as coming from "user@hostname". If you want a different username, use the --name flag:

echo ":coffee:" | slackcat --name "coffeebot"

Slackcat will use the channel specified when you set up the incoming webhook. You can override this in the config file by adding a "channel" option, or you can use the --channel flag:

echo "testing" | slackcat --channel #test