How to group chat in Slack through irssi + bitlbee

This tutorial assumes that you already have irssi and bitlbee installed and set up and therefore only details the process of adding the #general channel on a Slack board so you can group chat in the terminal. This tutorial will not go through how to get irssi and bitlbee set up for using XMPP chat services in the terminal, however, as there are already many good sources on the Internet that explain how to do this (Archlinux bitlbee tutorial, Slack tutorial on connecting via XMPP or IRC, etc).

In the bitlbee admin channel (/join &bitlbee), initially adding a slack account is straightforward:

account add jabber userName@myBoardName.xmpp.slack.com [Slack-generated XMPP password]

Note that you can find your Slack-generated XMPP password at myBoardName.slack.com/account/gateways at the bottom of the page with a section that reads "Getting Started: XMPP". This password is different from your main Slack password!

OK, so now you've added your XMPP account for a Slack board. If you do nothing else, you can at least chat with individual users on the board with the /msg userName command, but you won't be able to chat in channels such as #general.

To enable #general in Slack, enter the following from the bitlbee admin channel (all one line):

chat add userName@myBoardName.xmpp.slack.com general@conference.myBoardName.xmpp.slack.com

This step is not clear from the instructions provided by Slack on the .../account/gateways page.

But there is one problem -- unless your default irssi nick matches the one you are using in your Slack board, you will be refused access to #general. You can set your default irssi nick in $HOME/.irssi/config in the following line:

settings = {
  core = { real_name = "My real name"; user_name = "YourUserNameHere"; nick = "YourNick"; };
  "fe-text" = { actlist_sort = "refnum"; };
};

To apply changes, restart irssi. Or you can change your Slack username to match your irssi nick by clicking on Account Settings in the Slack UI.

Some screen shots of irssi + bitlbee in action with a Slack channel (already added).