n8n-nodes-slack-lists

This is an n8n community node. It lets you use Slack Lists in your n8n workflows — create Lists, and create, read, update and delete their items (rows) via the slackLists.* Web API.

The built-in Slack node does not support Slack Lists; this node fills that gap. It reuses n8n's built-in Slack credential, so if you already have one configured you can use it as-is.

n8n is a fair-code licensed workflow automation platform.

[!NOTE]
Slack Lists are only available on paid Slack plans.

• n8n-nodes-slack-lists
  • Installation
    • Community Nodes (recommended)
    • Manual installation (Docker / self-hosted)
  • Operations
    • Item
    • List
    • Trigger
    • Highlights
  • Credentials
    • 1. Prepare the Slack app (Slack side)
    • 2. Configure the credential (n8n side)
  • Usage
  • Using as an AI Agent tool
  • Compatibility
  • Troubleshooting
  • Known limitations
  • Development
  • Resources
  • License

Installation

Follow the installation guide in the n8n community nodes documentation.

Community Nodes (recommended)

1. Go to Settings > Community Nodes in your n8n instance
2. Select Install
3. Enter n8n-nodes-slack-lists as the npm package name
4. Agree to the risks of using community nodes and select Install

Manual installation (Docker / self-hosted)

# Inside your n8n data directory (e.g. ~/.n8n or /home/node/.n8n in Docker)
mkdir -p nodes && cd nodes
npm install n8n-nodes-slack-lists
# Restart your n8n instance

Operations

Item

List

Trigger

The Slack Lists Trigger node starts a workflow when a List is edited. Slack has no Lists webhook/event, so it polls — set the frequency with the standard Poll Times control (minimum once per minute).

How detection works:

• Each poll reads the List's whole-List last-edit time — max(updated, edit_timestamp) from files.info — and fires only when it advances past the previous poll.

• The first poll after activation does not fire; it just records the current state, so an existing List does not trigger a spurious run on activation.

• Polls with no change return nothing and are not kept in the executions list, so a 1-minute interval does not clutter your history.

• A poll that fails on a transient network error (connection timeout/reset, DNS hiccup, Slack 429/5xx) is retried up to 3 times, 5 seconds apart, before the error is reported. n8n's own Retry on Fail node setting does not apply to polling triggers, so the node handles this itself. Slack's own errors (invalid_auth, list_not_found, …) are reported immediately without retrying.

• Output is a single item describing when / who / which List changed — handy as an audit trail:

  {
    "list_id": "F0123ABCDEF",
    "title": "My List",
    "updated": "2026-07-20T23:12:57.000Z",
    "last_editor": "U0123ABCD",
    "permalink": "https://your-team.slack.com/lists/T0123456/F0123ABCDEF"
  }
  

• It reports that the List changed, not which row or whether a row was added/updated/removed. To act on the changed rows, follow the trigger with a Slack Lists → Item → Get Many node.

Highlights

• List picker — search the Lists visible to your token, or paste a List URL / ID.
• Dynamic column mapping — Item Create/Update load the List's actual columns (text, select, user, date, checkbox, rating, …) into n8n's column mapping UI. Select columns become dropdowns with their real choices, and plain text is converted to Slack's rich_text format automatically.
• Simplified output — items are returned as { id, ..., fields: { "Column Name": value } } instead of the raw cell format, and timestamps (date_created, updated_timestamp, List created/updated) are converted to ISO 8601 strings so n8n expressions can use them directly. Toggle off via the Simplify parameter to get raw API responses, unix timestamps included.

Credentials

This node uses n8n's built-in Slack credential (Slack API, access token) — no separate credential type. If you already have a Slack credential in n8n, add the scopes below to its Slack app and you are done.

1. Prepare the Slack app (Slack side)

1. Open your app at api.slack.com/apps (or create one)

2. Go to OAuth & Permissions > Scopes and add the following (bot or user scopes, matching the token you use):

   Scope	Used for
   lists:read	Reading items
   lists:write	Creating/updating/deleting items and Lists, managing access
   files:read	List picker, column mapping and List Get (Lists are files in Slack)

3. Reinstall the app to your workspace so the new scopes take effect

4. Copy the Bot User OAuth Token (xoxb-…) or User OAuth Token (xoxp-…)

2. Configure the credential (n8n side)

1. In n8n, go to Credentials > Add credential and search for Slack API
2. Paste the token into Access Token and save

[!CAUTION]
Keep the token secret. Anyone with the token can access your Slack workspace within its scopes.

Usage

Typical flow — append a row to a List from any data source:

1. Slack Lists node → Resource: Item, Operation: Create
2. Pick the List (search by name, or paste its URL)
3. Map columns in Values to Send — or switch the mapping mode to Map Automatically to fill columns whose names match the input JSON keys

With Simplify enabled (default), items come out ready to use:

{
  "id": "Rec0123ABCDEF",
  "list_id": "F0123ABCDEF",
  "date_created": "2026-07-19T11:27:21.000Z",
  "fields": {
    "Title": "Invoice issued",
    "Status": "in_review",
    "Assignee": "U0123ABCD"
  }
}

Notes on column values:

• Select columns accept and return the option value (e.g. day_1, OptXXXXXX), which you can pick from the dropdown in the mapping UI
• User / Channel columns accept IDs (U… / C…); multi-value columns accept comma-separated IDs or arrays
• Date columns accept anything new Date() can parse and are sent as YYYY-MM-DD

Using as an AI Agent tool

This node is marked as usable by AI Agents (usableAsTool). To allow community nodes as tools, set this environment variable on your n8n instance:

N8N_COMMUNITY_PACKAGES_ALLOW_TOOL_USAGE=true

The Get a List operation is handy for agents: it returns the List's column schema, letting the agent discover valid columns and select options before writing rows.

Compatibility

• Tested against: n8n 2.27 (self-hosted, Docker)
• Requires an n8n version with the resource mapper UI (n8n 1.x or later); older versions are untested

Troubleshooting

Known limitations

• The Slack API provides no method to delete a List, and slackLists.update can only change name/description/todo-mode (columns cannot be modified after creation), so these are not exposed.
• The Trigger node detects that a List was edited (with who/when), but not which row changed or whether it was added/updated/removed — Slack exposes no per-row change feed. Pair it with an Item → Get Many step to inspect the current rows. It also relies on files.info's edit_timestamp, an undocumented field; if Slack ever drops it, detection falls back to updated.
• List export (slackLists.download.*) is out of scope.
• This package references the built-in slackApi credential type and therefore does not target n8n Cloud's verified community node program. Self-hosted instances are unaffected.

Development

git clone https://github.com/hoyo/n8n-nodes-slack-lists.git
cd n8n-nodes-slack-lists
npm install
npm run build   # compile to dist/
npm test        # unit tests (vitest)
npm run lint
npm run dev     # run a local n8n with the node linked

Resources

• Slack Lists API reference
• Slack Lists product page
• n8n community nodes documentation

License

MIT