JSON Output

All commands output JSON by default. This page documents the shape of each output.

Posts (messages, mentions, thread, search, pinned)

Every post has these fields:

{
  "id": "ixtrtzkhk7fs9cayrz44uq5bgy",
  "thread_id": "ixtrtzkhk7fs9cayrz44uq5bgy",
  "is_reply": false,
  "author": "@alice",
  "message": "Can you check the deployment config?",
  "created_at": "2026-03-05T06:52:30Z",
  "channel": "engineering",
  "channel_id": "eqdx3n8zo3yqzyf46sobm14uwa",
  "file_count": 1
}

Field	Type	Description
`id`	string	Post ID
`thread_id`	string	Root post ID if reply, own ID if root. Pass to `mm thread`.
`is_reply`	boolean	Whether this post is a reply in a thread
`author`	string	@username of the author
`message`	string	Post text content
`created_at`	string	ISO 8601 timestamp (UTC)
`channel`	string	Channel display name
`channel_id`	string	Channel ID
`file_count`	integer	Number of file attachments

Conditional fields

These appear only when relevant:

Field	When	Description
`reply_count`	Root posts with replies	Number of replies in the thread
`files`	Posts with file metadata	Array of `{"id": "...", "name": "...", "size": 12345, "mime_type": "..."}`
`team`	Search and mentions output	Team display name
`is_bot`	Webhook/bot posts	Always `true` when present
`bot_name`	Webhook posts with a display name	The webhook's username (e.g. `"alertmatter"`)
`reactions`	Posts with emoji reactions	Object mapping emoji names to counts: `{"+1": 3}`
`root`	Reply-mentions in `mm mentions`	The original message: `{"author": "@bob", "message": "...", "created_at": "..."}`

Bot detection

Posts from webhooks and bots are automatically flagged:

{
  "author": "@webhook-user",
  "is_bot": true,
  "bot_name": "alertmatter",
  "message": "FIRING: Host out of disk space..."
}

When a webhook post has an empty message but includes Slack-format attachments (common for alert systems), the CLI extracts the alert text automatically. Without this, bot posts in alert channels would appear as empty messages.

Downloading files

When a post includes attachments, each file entry includes a stable id you can pass to mm download.

{
  "id": "ixtrtzkhk7fs9cayrz44uq5bgy",
  "file_count": 1,
  "files": [
    {
      "id": "abc123def456ghi789jkl012",
      "name": "incident-report.pdf",
      "size": 48213,
      "mime_type": "application/pdf",
      "extension": "pdf"
    }
  ]
}

mm download returns one record per saved file:

[
  {
    "file_id": "abc123def456ghi789jkl012",
    "name": "incident-report.pdf",
    "size": 48213,
    "mime_type": "application/pdf",
    "saved_to": "downloads/incident-report.pdf"
  }
]

Overview (overview command)

{
  "since": "6h",
  "mentions": [...],
  "unread": [...],
  "active_channels": [...]
}

Section	Contents
`mentions`	Posts that @-mention you (same shape as mentions command, with `root` on replies)
`unread`	Channels with unread messages: `{channel, ref, type, unread, last_post_at}`
`active_channels`	Channels with recent posts: `{channel, ref, type, last_post_at}`

Thread index (messages --threads)

[
  {
    "thread_id": "4tcdn8818bym8cnmjnmej7hxiy",
    "root_author": "@alice",
    "root_message": "Pushed a new build with the following changes...",
    "root_created_at": "2026-02-09T06:38:47Z",
    "reply_count": 66,
    "channel": "engineering",
    "last_reply_author": "@bob",
    "last_reply_message": "Deployed and verified",
    "last_reply_at": "2026-03-05T07:44:45Z"
  }
]

Channels (channels command)

{
  "id": "eqdx3n8zo3yqzyf46sobm14uwa",
  "name": "engineering",
  "ref": "engineering",
  "type": "Public",
  "team": "Engineering",
  "purpose": "Engineering discussion",
  "header": "On-call: @alice"
}

Channel info (channel command)

{
  "id": "zq9mowj6ojr8tftad1oyrbgmre",
  "name": "engineering",
  "type": "Public",
  "purpose": "Engineering discussion",
  "header": "On-call: @alice",
  "last_post_at": "2026-03-05T07:44:45Z",
  "created_at": "2023-08-08T04:12:05Z",
  "pinned_count": 11,
  "member_count": 61
}

Unread (unread command)

{
  "channel_id": "km4f6k31ibbpteg9875fpxb5gw",
  "channel": "alice, bob, carol",
  "ref": "km4f6k31ibbpteg9875fpxb5gw",
  "type": "Group DM",
  "unread": 5,
  "mentions": 3,
  "team": "Engineering",
  "last_post_at": "2026-03-05T06:52:30Z"
}

User (user command)

{
  "user_id": "w1gabcy35tnt5m5wscocbgampo",
  "username": "alice",
  "display_name": "Alice Smith",
  "email": "alice@example.com",
  "position": "Staff Engineer",
  "status": "online",
  "timezone": "Asia/Kolkata"
}

Members (members command)

{
  "user_id": "w1gabcy35tnt5m5wscocbgampo",
  "username": "alice",
  "display_name": "Alice Smith",
  "status": "online",
  "position": "Staff Engineer"
}

Sorted by status: online first, then away, dnd, offline.

The ref field

The ref field appears in overview, channels, and unread output. It's the exact string to pass to mm messages:

For named channels: the channel name (e.g. general)
For DMs and group DMs: the channel ID (since display names like "alice, bob" aren't addressable)

# From overview output: {"channel": "alice, bob", "ref": "km4f6k31ibb..."}
mm messages km4f6k31ibb...    # Works (using ref)
mm messages "alice, bob"       # Fails (display name not addressable)

Timestamps

All timestamps are ISO 8601 in UTC: 2026-03-05T06:52:30Z

Type labels

API	Label
`O`	Public
`P`	Private
`D`	DM
`G`	Group DM