Hi all, in the interests of transparency I'm giving this update:

I've been emailing back and forth with Slack to get their blessing on this project. Many communication tools have third party clients, and I just want them to confirm that they, too, will allow this. After all it'd be a pity to invest in development and then receive a cease-and-desist in a years time, as unlikely as that is.

Anyway, they can't confirm either way, this is their response:

However, without an actual product, we can't tell you whether or not your idea will violate our Terms of Service.

Thanks for getting back to me with this additional information. I can understand that you’d like to plan ahead, but I'm afraid we can’t determine Terms of Service violations in advance.

As such, I have to let you all know that this is a small risk to the project that i have not been able to resolve with Slack.