Activate

Activate is a Next.js web application that tracks Slack users' presence (active / away) over time and turns it into per-user activity reports: total active time, number of activity sessions, and a timeline of status changes for a given day.

It supports multiple Slack workspaces at once. Each workspace installs the Slack app via OAuth; the resulting bot token is stored in the database and used to poll that workspace's users.

How it works

• A cron-triggered endpoint (GET/POST /api/cron/check-presence) reads all active workspaces from the database, calls the Slack Web API (users.list, users.getPresence) for each workspace's users, and diffs the new presence against the last known value.
• Transitions between active and away open or close an ActivitySession row, which is what lets the app compute total active time and session counts per day. The start/continue/end decision is a pure function (lib/presenceSession.ts), unit tested independently of Slack or the database.
• The current status of every user is kept in a UserStatus row and is what the dashboard reads.
• The dashboard itself never talks to the database directly — client components (app/page.tsx, app/users/[userId]/page.tsx, stores/workspaceStore.ts) fetch from small JSON API routes (/api/workspaces, /api/user-statuses, /api/activity, /api/activity/heatmap), which run the Prisma queries server-side.
• A dashboard (app/page.tsx and related components) renders this data as tables, cards, and an activity heatmap, with a workspace switcher backed by a Zustand store.
• A Slack slash command handler (POST /api/slack/webhook) verifies the Slack request signature; command handling beyond that is a stub (no commands are implemented right now).
• Sign-in to the dashboard itself uses NextAuth.js with a simple credentials provider (a single configured username/password), not Slack OAuth — Slack OAuth is only used to install the bot into a workspace.

Tech stack

• Next.js 15 (App Router) + React 19 + TypeScript
• Prisma + Postgres (Neon) as the data store — see Database below
• NextAuth.js (next-auth v5 beta) for dashboard authentication
• @slack/web-api for Slack API calls
• Tailwind CSS + shadcn/ui (Radix primitives) + Recharts/Tremor for the UI
• Zustand for client-side workspace state
• Vitest for unit tests

Project structure

app/
  api/auth/[...nextauth]/    NextAuth route handlers
  api/auth/slack/callback/   Slack OAuth callback — exchanges code, upserts the workspace + bot token
  api/cron/check-presence/   Polls Slack presence for all active workspaces, writes sessions/status
  api/slack/webhook/         Slack event/slash-command endpoint (signature-verified)
  api/test-presence/         Manual test endpoint for a single hardcoded Slack user ID
  api/workspaces/            List active workspaces (used by the workspace switcher)
  api/user-statuses/         List/get user statuses for a workspace
  api/activity/              Per-day activity (work sessions, total active time)
  api/activity/heatmap/      A full year of daily activity totals in one query
  users/[userId]/            Per-user activity detail page
  page.tsx                   Main dashboard
components/                  Dashboard UI (sidebar, tables, cards, charts) and shadcn/ui primitives
prisma/schema.prisma          Database schema (Workspace, UserStatus, ActivitySession)
lib/prisma.ts                 Prisma client singleton (server-only)
lib/activityService.ts        Session/activity calculations that hit the database (server-only)
lib/activityUtils.ts          Pure formatting helpers + shared types, safe to import from client components
lib/presenceSession.ts        Pure active/away session state machine used by the cron job
stores/workspaceStore.ts      Zustand store for the selected workspace (fetches /api/workspaces)
auth.ts / auth.config.ts      NextAuth configuration (credentials provider)
middleware.ts                 Route protection, delegates to auth.ts
app.slack.manifest.json       Slack app manifest (bot scopes: users:read)

Database

Postgres, hosted on Neon, used for both local development and production. Prisma's generated client has no native query engine (engineType = "client" in prisma/schema.prisma) — queries run through @prisma/adapter-pg and a pg connection pool (lib/prisma.ts) instead, which avoids the native-binary bundling issues that native Prisma engines hit on serverless platforms like Vercel.

pnpm prisma migrate dev   # apply schema changes
pnpm prisma studio        # browse/edit the database in a GUI
pnpm db:seed               # populate demo data (a workspace + two users with sample activity)

Environment variables

These are the environment variables actually read by the code:

# Postgres connection string (Neon), used by lib/prisma.ts and the Prisma CLI
DATABASE_URL=

# Base URL used to build OAuth redirect/callback URLs
NEXT_PUBLIC_BASE_URL=http://localhost:3000

# Dashboard login (NextAuth credentials provider)
AUTH_USERNAME=
AUTH_PASSWORD=
AUTH_SECRET=            # openssl rand -hex 32

# Slack app OAuth (installing the bot into a workspace)
SLACK_CLIENT_ID=
SLACK_CLIENT_SECRET=

# Slack request verification (for /api/slack/webhook)
SLACK_SIGNING_SECRET=

# Slack bot token, only used by the manual /api/test-presence endpoint
# (the cron job instead uses per-workspace bot tokens stored in the database)
SLACK_BOT_TOKEN=

# Cron job authorization for /api/cron/check-presence (Authorization: Bearer <CRON_SECRET>)
CRON_SECRET=

Note: what triggers /api/cron/check-presence on a schedule (Vercel Cron, GitHub Actions, or something else) is not part of this repository — you need to set that up yourself and send Authorization: Bearer <CRON_SECRET> with the request.

Slack app configuration

app.slack.manifest.json defines the Slack app used by this project:

• Bot scopes: users:read
• User scope: users:read
• Socket mode and org-wide install are disabled

To connect a workspace, create/configure a Slack app with these scopes, set its OAuth redirect URL to <NEXT_PUBLIC_BASE_URL>/api/auth/slack/callback, and point Slack event/slash-command requests at <NEXT_PUBLIC_BASE_URL>/api/slack/webhook.

Setup

1. Install dependencies:

   pnpm install

2. Create a .env.local file with the variables listed above (DATABASE_URL needs a real Postgres connection string, e.g. from a free Neon project).
3. Apply the database schema:

   pnpm prisma migrate dev

4. Run the dev server:

   pnpm dev

   The app runs at http://localhost:3000.

Other scripts: pnpm build, pnpm start, pnpm lint, pnpm test.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.