Subscribe to a channel
POST https://chat.zulip.org/api/v1/users/me/subscriptions
Subscribe one or more users to one or more channels.
If any of the specified channels do not exist, they are automatically
created. The initial channel settings will be determined
by the optional parameters, like invite_only, detailed below.
Note that the ability to subscribe oneself and/or other users to a specified
channel depends on the channel's privacy settings.
Changes: Before Zulip 8.0 (feature level 208), if a user
specified by the principals parameter was
a deactivated user, or did not exist, then an HTTP status code
of 403 was returned with code: "UNAUTHORIZED_PRINCIPAL" in the
error response. As of this feature level, an HTTP status code of
400 is returned with code: "BAD_REQUEST" in the error response
for these cases.
Usage examples
#!/usr/bin/env python3
import zulip
# Pass the path to your zuliprc file here.
client = zulip.Client(config_file="~/zuliprc")
# Create and subscribe to channel "python-test".
result = client.add_subscriptions(
streams=[
{
"name": "python-test",
"description": "Channel for testing Python",
},
],
)
# To subscribe other users to a channel, you may pass
# the `principals` argument, like so:
result = client.add_subscriptions(
streams=[
{"name": "python-test"},
],
principals=[user_id],
)
print(result)
More examples and documentation can be found here.
const zulipInit = require("zulip-js");
// Pass the path to your zuliprc file here.
const config = { zuliprc: "zuliprc" };
(async () => {
const client = await zulipInit(config);
// Subscribe to the channels "Verona" and "Denmark"
const meParams = {
subscriptions: JSON.stringify([{name: "Verona"}, {name: "Denmark"}]),
};
console.log(await client.users.me.subscriptions.add(meParams));
// To subscribe another user to a channel, you may pass in
// the `principals` parameter, like so:
const user_id = 7;
const anotherUserParams = {
subscriptions: JSON.stringify([{name: "Verona"}, {name: "Denmark"}]),
principals: JSON.stringify([user_id]),
};
console.log(await client.users.me.subscriptions.add(anotherUserParams));
})();
curl -sSX POST https://chat.zulip.org/api/v1/users/me/subscriptions \
-u BOT_EMAIL_ADDRESS:BOT_API_KEY \
--data-urlencode 'subscriptions=[{"description": "Italian city", "name": "Verona"}]'
To subscribe another user to a channel, you may pass in
the principals parameter, like so:
curl -sSX POST https://chat.zulip.org/api/v1/users/me/subscriptions \
-u BOT_EMAIL_ADDRESS:BOT_API_KEY \
--data-urlencode 'subscriptions=[{"description": "Italian city", "name": "Verona"}]' \
--data-urlencode 'principals=["ZOE@zulip.com"]'
Parameters
subscriptions (object)[] required
Example: [{"name": "Verona", "description": "Italian city"}]
A list of dictionaries containing the key name and value
specifying the name of the channel to subscribe. If the channel does not
exist a new channel is created. The description of the channel created can
be specified by setting the dictionary key description with an
appropriate value.
subscriptions object details:
-
name: string required The name of the channel.
Clients should use the max_stream_name_length returned by the
POST /register endpoint to determine
the maximum channel name length.
-
description: string optional The description
to use for a new channel being created, in text/markdown format.
Clients should use the max_stream_description_length returned
by the POST /register endpoint to
determine the maximum channel description length.
principals (string)[] | (integer)[] optional
Example: ["ZOE@zulip.com"]
A list of user IDs (preferred) or Zulip API email
addresses of the users to be subscribed to or unsubscribed
from the channels specified in the subscriptions parameter. If
not provided, then the requesting user/bot is subscribed.
Changes: The integer format is new in Zulip 3.0 (feature level 9).
authorization_errors_fatal boolean optional
Example: false
A boolean specifying whether authorization errors (such as when the
requesting user is not authorized to access a private channel) should be
considered fatal or not. When true, an authorization error is reported
as such. When set to false, the response will be a 200 and any channels
where the request encountered an authorization error will be listed
in the unauthorized key.
Defaults to true.
announce boolean optional
Example: true
If one of the channels specified did not exist previously and is thus created
by this call, this determines whether notification bot
will send an announcement about the new channel's creation.
Defaults to false.
invite_only boolean optional
Example: true
As described above, this endpoint will create a new channel if passed
a channel name that doesn't already exist. This parameters and the ones
that follow are used to request an initial configuration of a created
channel; they are ignored for channels that already exist.
This parameter determines whether any newly created channels will be
private channels.
Defaults to false.
is_web_public boolean optional
Example: true
This parameter determines whether any newly created channels will be
web-public channels.
Note that creating web-public channels requires the
WEB_PUBLIC_STREAMS_ENABLED server setting
to be enabled on the Zulip server in question, the organization
to have enabled the enable_spectator_access realm setting, and
the current use to have permission under the organization's
can_create_web_public_channel_group realm setting.
Changes: New in Zulip 5.0 (feature level 98).
Defaults to false.
is_default_stream boolean optional
Example: true
This parameter determines whether any newly created channels will be
added as default channels for new users joining
the organization.
Changes: New in Zulip 8.0 (feature level 200). Previously, default channel status
could only be changed using the dedicated API endpoint.
Defaults to false.
history_public_to_subscribers boolean optional
Example: false
Whether the channel's message history should be available to
newly subscribed members, or users can only access messages
they actually received while subscribed to the channel.
Corresponds to the shared history
option in documentation.
stream_post_policy integer optional
Example: 2
Policy for which users can post messages to the channel.
- 1 = Any user can post.
- 2 = Only administrators can post.
- 3 = Only full members can post.
- 4 = Only moderators can post.
Changes: New in Zulip 3.0 (feature level 1), replacing the previous
is_announcement_only boolean.
Defaults to 1.
message_retention_days string | integer optional
Example: "20"
Number of days that messages sent to this channel will be stored
before being automatically deleted by the message retention
policy. Two special string format
values are supported:
"realm_default": Return to the organization-level setting."unlimited": Retain messages forever.
Changes: Prior to Zulip 5.0 (feature level 91), retaining
messages forever was encoded using "forever" instead of
"unlimited".
New in Zulip 3.0 (feature level 17).
can_remove_subscribers_group integer | object optional
Example: null
A group-setting value defining the set of users
who have permission to remove subscribers from this channel.
Administrators can always unsubscribe others from a channel.
Note that a user who is a member of the specified user group must
also have access to the channel in
order to unsubscribe others.
Changes: Prior to Zulip 10.0 (feature level 320), this value was
always the integer ID of a system group.
Before Zulip 8.0 (feature level 197), the can_remove_subscribers_group
setting was named can_remove_subscribers_group_id.
New in Zulip 6.0 (feature level 142).
This parameter must be one of the following:
The ID of the user group with this permission.
An object with the following fields:
-
direct_members: (integer)[] The list of IDs of individual users in the collection of users with this permission.
Changes: Prior to Zulip 10.0 (feature level 303), this list would include
deactivated users who had the permission before being deactivated.
-
direct_subgroups: (integer)[] The list of IDs of the groups in the collection of users with this permission.
can_administer_channel_group integer | object optional
Example: null
A group-setting value defining the set of users
who have permission to administer this channel.
Note that a user who is a member of the specified user group must
also have access to the channel in
order to administer the channel.
Realm admins are allowed to administer a channel they have access to
regardless of whether they are present in this group.
Users in this group can edit channel name and description without
subscribing to the channel, but they need to be subscribed to edit
channel permissions and add users.
Changes: New in Zulip 10.0 (feature level 325). Prior to this
change, the permission to administer channels was limited to realm
administrators.
This parameter must be one of the following:
The ID of the user group with this permission.
An object with the following fields:
-
direct_members: (integer)[] The list of IDs of individual users in the collection of users with this permission.
Changes: Prior to Zulip 10.0 (feature level 303), this list would include
deactivated users who had the permission before being deactivated.
-
direct_subgroups: (integer)[] The list of IDs of the groups in the collection of users with this permission.
Response
Return values
-
subscribed: object
A dictionary where the key is the ID of the user and the value
is a list of the names of the channels that user was subscribed
to as a result of the request.
Changes: Before Zulip 10.0 (feature level 289), the user
keys were Zulip API email addresses, not user ID.
-
already_subscribed: object
A dictionary where the key is the ID of the user and the value
is a list of the names of the channels that where the user was
not added as a subscriber in this request, because they were
already a subscriber.
Changes: Before Zulip 10.0 (feature level 289), the user
keys were Zulip API email addresses, not user IDs.
-
unauthorized: (string)[]
A list of names of channels that the requesting user/bot was not
authorized to subscribe to. Only present if "authorization_errors_fatal": false.
Example response(s)
Changes: As of Zulip 7.0 (feature level 167), if any
parameters sent in the request are not supported by this
endpoint, a successful JSON response will include an
ignored_parameters_unsupported array.
A typical successful JSON response may look like:
{
"already_subscribed": {
"1": [
"testing-help"
]
},
"msg": "",
"result": "success",
"subscribed": {
"2": [
"testing-help"
]
}
}
An example JSON response for when the requesting user does not have
access to a private channel and "authorization_errors_fatal": true:
{
"code": "BAD_REQUEST",
"msg": "Unable to access channel (private).",
"result": "error"
}