ttyak

A Slack client for the terminal, written in Rust.

ttyak.sh — the site and the downloads · The wiki — the manual

What ttyak is

ttyak does in a terminal what Slack's desktop app does in a window: messages and threads, reactions, search, pictures and video, desktop notifications, and huddles (calls) with audio, cameras and screen sharing. How it differs from the official app:

• it runs in a terminal, also over SSH;
• it is far lighter: download, disk, memory and CPU against the official app are measured on ttyak.sh;
• it is not an official Slack app and is not affiliated with Slack. It talks to Slack the way the web client in your browser does.

ttyak was called klack until 0.9 (and slacktui before that); folders of the old names are not read.

What it shows and how to use it: The screen, Keys, Huddles and the rest of the wiki.

Signing in

Read this first: signing in is not as smooth as in Slack's own app. ttyak is not an official app and not a desktop app with windows of its own, so it can't take the "open in Slack" (slack://) link that Slack's sign-in ends with, and it doesn't use Slack's sign-in for apps. It uses a browser session instead (an xoxc-… token plus the d cookie), which it gets in one of three ways:

• a code from your email: you ask Slack for a code on your phone or in any browser and type it into ttyak (works over SSH and without a browser);
• your browser: you sign in to Slack in a browser on the same machine, and ttyak picks the session up from the browser's files;
• a pasted cookie: you copy the d cookie from a browser's developer tools.

Workspaces that require SSO or two-factor sign-in can't use the email code (ttyak shows them dim); sign in to those in your browser (not tried yet with such a workspace). ttyak auth login, or plain ttyak the first time, guides you. All of it, step by step: Signing in.

Install

Linux and macOS:

curl -fsSL https://ttyak.sh/install.sh | sh

Windows (PowerShell):

irm https://ttyak.sh/install.ps1 | iex

The script puts the latest release in ~/.local/bin (Windows: %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\ttyak) and on your PATH, after checking it against the release's SHA256SUMS. ttyak.exe is not code-signed yet: if SmartScreen warns, More info → Run anyway. Or with a package manager:

Package manager
Homebrew (macOS, Linux)	brew install dmytrobsp/ttyak/ttyak
Scoop	scoop bucket add ttyak https://github.com/dmytrobsp/scoop-ttyak, then scoop install ttyak
Chocolatey	choco install ttyak
winget	not listed yet (its first version is waiting for review); then: winget install dmytrobsp.ttyak
Debian, Ubuntu · Fedora, RHEL	the release's .deb · .rpm
Arch	not in the AUR yet: makepkg -si with the release's recipes zip

Or unzip a release's zip by hand. Every way, in full: Install.

Requirements

• a UTF-8 terminal of at least 80 × 24 cells: ttyak draws its screen in it;
• an emoji font and a symbol font (macOS and Windows have them): without them emoji and symbols show as boxes;
• on Linux, ALSA's library (libasound.so.2, on every desktop Linux): ttyak plays sound and huddle audio through it and doesn't start without it;
• ffmpeg / ffprobe (optional): video, cameras and screen sharing (on Wayland, screen sharing goes through GStreamer with the PipeWire plugin instead);
• a terminal with graphics, such as kitty, WezTerm or foot (optional): real pictures instead of half blocks;
• a notification server on Linux (optional): desktop notifications.

ttyak ctl check tells you what your terminal and system offer. The fonts to install, per system, and the rest: Requirements.

Verify

Each release file has its line in the release's SHA256SUMS and a GitHub attestation: Verifying downloads.

Update

ttyak tells you when a new version is out, and F6 → Updates shows what to run for the way you installed it (for the install script, an Update now in ttyak itself): Update.

Uninstall

ttyak uninstall for the install script, your package manager's remove otherwise; ttyak purge deletes your ttyak data: Uninstall.

Build and contribute

With a recent stable Rust toolchain, a C/C++ compiler, pkg-config, cmake and (on Linux) the ALSA headers:

cargo build --release
./target/release/ttyak

The packages per system: Building from source. How to work on ttyak (tests, logs, a test workspace): CONTRIBUTING.md. Bugs and ideas go to the issues.

Project layout

• crates/slack-core — sessions and signing in, the Web API client, real-time events, message formatting
• crates/huddle — huddles: signaling, WebRTC audio and video, audio devices, cameras and screen capture
• crates/ttyak — the program: the terminal UI and the ctl, auth and other commands
• vendor/rtc-turn, vendor/crossterm — two patched dependencies (each folder's TTYAK-PATCH.md says why)

The whole map: Project layout.

Licence

ttyak is licensed under either of the Apache License, Version 2.0 or the MIT licence, at your option. Unless you say otherwise, any contribution you submit for inclusion in ttyak is licensed the same way, without any additional terms or conditions. vendor/rtc-turn is webrtc-rs' code (MIT or Apache-2.0, its licence files are in that folder) and vendor/crossterm crossterm's (MIT).