Messages
There are several different Message Types: in addition to sending plain chat messages, you can post content to the team inbox, upload files and set the user’s status. Messages are a sub-resource of flows, meaning they should always be accessed in a flow’s context.
Send a message
Send a chat message, set a user’s status, comment in a thread, upload a file, etc. You can optionally define the flow as a part of the path.
POST /messages
POST /flows/:organization/:flow/messages
POST /flows/:organization/:flow/threads/:id/messages
Comments (replies to a previous non-threaded message) have their own endpoint.
POST /comments
POST /flows/:organization/:flow/messages/:message/comments
Sending a message to a flow is possible using all authentication methods, including flow tokens.
Parameters
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| flow | Required when flow is not specified in the URL or when not using a flow_token. The id of the target flow. Can be specified in the URL. |
| event | Required. The message event type. See the Message Types section below. |
| content | Required. The message content. The format of the content depends on the event type. See the Message Types section below. |
| message | Required for comments. The id of the commented parent message (which must not be a comment). Can be specified in the URL. |
| tags | List of tags to be added to the message. Can either be an array (JSON only) or a string with tags delimited with commas. User tags should start with ’@’. Hashtags can optionally be prefixed with “#”. Tags are case insensitive. These are equivalent: ["@Mike", "#cool", "awesome"] and "#awesome,cool,@mike" |
| external_user_name | Name that appears as the message sender. This will change the message to an anonymous message, as if it was sent from the Push API. |
| uuid | An optional client-generated unique string identifier. It is the client’s responsibility to ensure the uniqueness (in the scope of the flow) of the uuid. This can be, for example, used to render sent messages instantly and later add necessary data (id) for tagging. |
| thread_id | The id of the thread this message is being posted to. In order to post a message into a thread, this or external_thread_id is required. |
| external_thread_id | An ID (specified by the API user) to identify the thread this message should be added to. The ID should be unique within the source. For examples, see the integration guide’s section about posting to the inbox. |
| thread | New state for the thread. |
| attachments | List of attachments for a message. Only valid for activity and discussion events. See files. |
{
"event": "message",
"content": "Howdy-Doo @Jackie #awesome",
"tags": ["todo", "#feedback", "@all"]
}
Headers
Set X-flowdock-wait-for-message header in the request if you wish to wait until the message has been fully processed and get assigned unique message id. This may take vastly longer than not waiting for the message to be processed.
Response
If X-flowdock-wait-for-message header is not set or processing the message takes longer than expected CA Flowdock will reply with 202
HTTP/1.1 202
Otherwise CA Flowdock will respond with the posted message with the assigned unique per flow message id.
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8
Flowdock-User: 2
Link: http://api.flowdock.com/flows/acme/main/messages/12345/comments; rel="comments"
{
"id": 12345,
"event": "message",
"content": "Howdy-Doo @Jackie #awesome",
"tags": ["todo", "feedback", ":user:everyone", "awesome", ":user:123"],
"user": "2",
"uuid":"9rOhL9RS-jhr8-YvFHRfhA",
"sent":1385546251160,
"app":"chat",
"attachments":[],
"created_at": "2013-11-27T09:57:31.160Z"
}
Message Types
The event parameter in the message data defines the type of message. More information can be found on the Message Types page.
Normal Chat message
Event: message
For chat messages, content is simply a string which represents the chat message’s content. Additionally, tags are parsed from the message content. The maximum length of the content is 8096 characters.
Comment message
Event: comment
Comments can only be posted through the message specific comments URL. The format of content is the same as with message. Please note that for forward compatibility reasons, the format of content is different here than the content field that’s returned by the Streaming or REST API for comment messages.
Status Update
Event: status
The format of content is the same as with message. Sets the status of the user.
File Upload
Event: file
The format of content is different depending on the Content-Type of the request. When using application/json, the binary is sent as a Base64-encoded string within the JSON. Example:
{
"data": "iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAABQAAAAaCAYAAAC3g3x9AAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJ\nbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAAElJREFUeNpiYECA/UD8n0y8nwENUGIYTkOpAhihplMNMFHbhVQ3kIVA\ncOAD/0k1kAFP+DIO3UgZTYej6XA0HY6mw9F0CAEAAQYAk/gtCSEUikYAAAAASUVORK5CYII=\n",
"content_type": "image/png",
"file_name": "cabinet_icon.png"
}
To send the file using form data, set Content-Type as multipart/form-data and set the value of content as the binary part. Here’s an example using curl:
curl -v -X POST -F "event=file" -F "content=@path/to/file.png" https://BASIC-AUTH@api.flowdock.com/flows/ORGANIZATION/FLOW/messages
Files can also be uploaded to discussion threads using the same URL format as with comments.
Threaded messages
There are a few types of messages that can belong to a thread:
- Activity - updates to a thread
- Discussion - external discussions in another service
- Message - comments/discussion in CA Flowdock
- File - uploaded file stored in CA Flowdock
To post threaded messages to a flow, you need to have an application that has been authorized by the user. This process is described in the production grade integration guide. If you just want to post these messages to your own flows, have a look at the the quick integration guide for instructions on how to skip the authorization process and obtain a flow token posting messages.
List Messages
GET /flows/:organization/:flow/messages
GET /flows/:organization/:flow/threads/:id/messages
Lists messages from a flow, filtered by parameters.
Parameters
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| event | Filter messages by event type. Leave blank to get all messages, which is also the default. Multiple event types can be specified by separating them with commas. |
| limit | Maximum number of messages to return. Accepted values range from 1 to 100. Defaults to 30. |
| sort | Descending order is used by default. Use parameter value asc for ascending order. Note: the response JSON will always have the matching messages in ascending order by their id. The sort parameter is for toggling between fetching the latest or the oldest matching messages. |
| since_id and until_id | Get messages starting from or leading to a message id. The message specified with the parameter won’t be included in the response. |
| tags | Filter messages by tags. Multiple tags can be specified by separating them with commas, which results in an AND search of those tags by default (see tag_mode parameter). When searching with user tags, you can use either the human-readable form, @user, or the internal form containing the user ID, :user:12345. Read more at Tags. |
| tag_mode | Toggles tag filtering of messages. By default the value is and. Use value or to search for messages that contain any of the tags specified in tags. |
| search | Full text search for message content. The search matches messages that contain all the specified keywords. Separate the keywords by spaces. |
Response
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8
Flowdock-User: 2
[
{
"app":"chat",
"sent":1317397485508,
"uuid":"odHapx1VWp7WTrdQ",
"tags":[],
"flow": "deadbeefdeadbeef",
"id":3816534,
"event":"action",
"content":{
"type": "add_rss_feed",
"description": "http://apidock.com/ruby/RSS"
},
"attachments": [],
"user":"18",
"created_at": "2011-09-30T15:44:45.507Z"
},
{
"app": "chat",
"event": "message",
"tags": [],
"uuid": "4W_LQEybVaX-gJmi",
"id": 45590,
"flow": "deadbeefdeadbeef",
"content": "Hello World",
"sent": 1317715340213,
"attachments": [],
"user": "2",
"created_at": "2011-10-04T08:02:20.213Z"
},
// ... 28 more messages
]
Message fields are described below in the Show Message section.
Show Message
GET /flows/:organization/:flow/messages/:id
Retrieve a message with the specified id.
Response
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8
Flowdock-User: 2
{
"app":"chat",
"sent":1317397485508,
"uuid":"odHapx1VWp7WTrdQ",
"tags":[],
"flow": "deadbeefdeadbeef",
"id":3816534,
"event":"action",
"content":{
"type": "add_rss_feed",
"description": "http://apidock.com/ruby/RSS"
},
"attachments": [],
"user":"18",
"created_at": "2011-09-30T15:44:45.507Z"
}
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| event | The type of the message. E.g. a chat message or tweet. See Message Types. |
| content | Data payload. The format depends on the event type, as documented in Message Types. |
| tags | List of tags as strings. Tags containing colon characters have a special meaning and can be discarded when showing the tags in the user interface. |
| app | Deprecated. |
| uuid | Optional client-generated universal identifier for the message. Used to recognize messages sent by a client. |
| user | Numerical user id of user |
| sent | Timestamp when the message was sent. Milliseconds since Jan 1st, 1970. |
| flow | Flow identifier. |
| id | Incremental id of message. Unique only in the flow’s scope. |
| attachments | List of file attachments related to this message. Example: |
[
{
"content_type":"text/html",
"content_id":"4e8b0e5bdccc2_4eec800c21ac57014@ciMac.local.mail",
"file_name":"cucumber.html",
"file_size":27798, // Size in bytes
"path":"/files/123/ec53a7aa7a974cdc9d07c5ca395a2f05/cucumber.html"
}
]
Edit Message
PUT /flows/:organization/:flow/messages/:id
Updates a message with the specified id. Note: only certain types and certain content can be edited, as defined by the message event type.
Parameters
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| content | The message content. Updating content is only possible for your own messages of type message or comment. |
| tags | Full list of message tags. Any existing tags that aren’t included in this parameter are removed from the message. As in the web UI, anyone can edit the tags of any message they can see. |
{
"content": "Updated content",
"tags": ["todo", "#feedback", "@all"]
}
Response
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8
Flowdock-User: 2
{}
Delete Message
DELETE /flows/:organization/:flow/messages/:id
Delete a message with the specified id. Team inbox (app=influx) and a user’s own file (event=file) messages will be completely removed and HTTP status 204 will be returned. User’s own chat messages (event=message or event=comment) will be truncated with HTTP status 200. For any other messages the response will be HTTP status 403.
Response
HTTP/1.1 204 OK
Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8
Flowdock-User: 2