Discord Bot Starter Kit

Welcome to Hack@Brown's Discord Bot starter kit! In this kit, we're providing you with some boilerplate code, as well as a little guide to get started on building your very own bot!

Not only is building a bot a fun and exciting project, but it also teaches valuable skills in programming and automation. Moreover, as Discord supports numerous media types (audio, video, text, images, etc.), possibilities are basically infinite!

The first few steps of building a Discord bot are very generic and can sometimes be annoying. But, fear not: we've completed them for you! The boilerplate we're providing has the code for a working Discord bot that is able to respond to a very simple ping slash command.

1. Boilerplate Structure

This boilerplate uses Node.js and the discord.js module, and is written in TypeScript. You can find the folder structure of our starter kit below:

.
├── src/
│   ├── commands/
│   │   └── ping.ts
│   ├── config/
│   │   └── IntentOptions.ts
│   ├── handlers/
│   │   └── onInteraction.ts
│   ├── interfaces/
│   │   └── ICommand.ts
│   ├── utils/
│   │   └── deployCommands.ts
│   └── index.ts
├── .env
├── .gitignore
├── package-lock.json
├── README.md
└── tsconfig.json

We have included comments in each file we wrote, that explain the purpose of the most fundamental parts of the code. Make sure to read them to better understand how the boilerplate works!

2. Adding the bot to your Discord server

To test your bot and actually use it, you need to create its "profile" and invite it to a Discord server! The amazing discord.js Guide explains it very well here. Follow the steps on the page, then continue reading this guide!

Once you have generated a token, head to the .env file and paste it after the BOT_TOKEN=. Additionally, provide your bot's client ID for the CLIENT_ID field. You can find this in the "General Information" section, on the menu to the left in the Discord Developer Portal.

Finally, head to this section to add the bot to your server!

3. Building and Running the Starter Code

cd into the discordbot-starter folder (or open the directory in your terminal)
Run npm install to download all required Node.js packages.
Run npm run build to build the TypeScript code. This will create a build folder, which contains the executable JavaScript code.
Finally, run npm start to start your bot up! The program should print "Bot is connected to Discord" if everything went well.

After you make any changes to the code, make sure to run npm run build and npm start again! As you should only be writing code in the src folder, this ensures you build it (i.e., "convert" it to JavaScript) in order to run it.

4. Creating and Deploying Commands

a. Getting the /ping command to work.

One of the main ways of interacting with a Discord bot is through using slash commands. These commands are comparable to UNIX commands, and instruct the bot to do something. There are many other ways of interacting with a Discord bot, and you can find a list of events your bot can listen for here.

As commands are a little tedious to setup, we have done so in the boilerplate. Currently, only a single command is functional in the boilerplate (the /ping command).

However, to make your bot actually receive commands, you must deploy them. Deploying means telling Discord servers about your commands: their name, and a description. To do so:

cd into discordbot-starter
Run npm run deploy

The script should say "Successfully reloaded 1 application (/) commands."

Now, head to Discord and open a text channel that the bot has access to. When typing /ping, a menu should pop up:

Clicking the suggestion, and sending the command should have your bot say "pong!". If it does not work, make sure your bot is online!

b. Writing a new command

To create a new command, you should first start by creating a new TypeScript file <command name>.ts inside of the src/commands directory. You should make sure that the name of your file corresponds exactly to the name of the command you want to create.

Then, you must create a JavaScript object, that implements the ICommand interface. This interface specifies that your object must have two fields, data of type SlashCommandBuilder, and an asynchronous execute command. The data field holds information about the command (its name, and description), while the execute function contains the code that should be ran when a user types a comand. That is where you will write all the code for your command.

After that, you should make sure to set your module.exports equal to the ICommand object you just created. This ensures that it is accessible from other TypeScript files in the project.

Finally, you must run npm run deploy to deploy your new command to Discord's servers, before starting up your bot.

Useful comments can be found in the sample ping.ts we provided. This article from the discord.js Guide is also very useful for creating commands.

5. Useful Resources

A great tutorial by Naomi Carrigan which helped me write this guide.
The absolutely amazing discord.js Guide.
discord.js Official Documentation

Ayma-n/discordbot-starter