Hi again Elijah,
It’s fantastic to see you taking on such an ambitious project! Integrations are a great way to tailor Mattermost to suit the specific needs of your organization.
When developing custom integrations within Mattermost, I’d recommend exploring the Webhooks and Slash Commands features. These can be powerful when integrated with your external tools and are often great starting points. Our documentation does a pretty good job explaining these two, but here are the links for easy access:
To handle authentication and authorization securely, Mattermost supports OAuth 2.0 for third party applications. We also provide Personal Access Tokens (PATs) for simpler scenarios where you might need to authenticate and authorize a script or a bot. These are both well-document on our developer’s site.
Regarding challenges, it varies greatly from team to team, integration to integration. One common challenge is often ensuring the integrations are scalable and maintainable. To overcome this, it’s recommended to invest time in creating a good architectural layout before diving deep into the coding phase.
There’s a plethora of learning resources available in our developer documentation as well.
Lastly, remember that this forum is an invaluable resource. Don’t hesitate to share your challenges here as you progress, as many in this community have faced similar challenges and can offer guidance.
Best of luck with your project. Remember that success in these sorts of endeavors often takes time and patience, so don’t be discouraged by initial challenges. You’re already on the right path by reaching out for advice!
Best of luck,
~John 