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Slack issues two separate access tokens during OAuth:
  • Bot Token (starts with xoxb-): Used for actions performed by your app’s bot
  • User Token (starts with xoxp-): Used for actions performed on behalf of the authorizing user
Important: By default, Nango uses the bot token as the primary access token. This means when you make API calls through Nango’s proxy, it will use the bot token by default.

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When You Need the User Token

Some Slack API endpoints require user-scoped permissions and will only accept user tokens (e.g., certain user profile operations). If you try to call these endpoints with the bot token, Slack will reject the request.

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How to Use the User Token

  1. Fetch the raw connection to get the user token:
import { Nango } from '@nangohq/node';

const nango = new Nango({ secretKey: '<NANGO-SECRET-KEY>' });

// Fetch the connection with raw credentials
const connection = await nango.getConnection(
  '<INTEGRATION-ID>',
  '<CONNECTION-ID>'
);

// The user token is in the raw response
const userToken = connection.credentials.raw.authed_user?.access_token;
  1. Override the authorization header when making proxy calls:
// Use the user token by overriding the auth header
const response = await nango.get({
  endpoint: '/users.profile.get',
  providerConfigKey: '<INTEGRATION-ID>',
  connectionId: '<CONNECTION-ID>',
  headers: {
    'nango-proxy-authorization': `Bearer ${userToken}`
  }
});

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When Creating Connections in Nango

If you need user tokens for your integration, you can specify user scopes when creating a connect session: 
const { data } = await nango.createConnectSession({
  end_user_id: '<END-USER-ID>',
  integrations_config_defaults: {
    "slack": {
      user_scopes: "users.profile:read, chat:write"
    }
  }
});
For more details on Slack’s OAuth implementation, see Slack’s OAuth documentation.