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DevRel Discord Bot - Setup Guide

This project runs as a short-lived Python process. A scheduled invocation gathers the GitHub Blog and YouTube digests, posts them through Discord's HTTP API, and exits. It does not require a continuously running bot or Docker.

Prerequisites

  • Python 3.11 or newer
  • A Discord bot with Send Messages and Embed Links permissions
  • A YouTube Data API v3 key
  • A host that can run a weekly cron job

Configure Discord

  1. Create a Discord application and bot in the Discord Developer Portal.
  2. Copy the bot token as DISCORD_TOKEN.
  3. Enable Developer Mode in Discord and copy the destination channel IDs.
  4. Set the discord_channel_id values in config/config.yaml.

Configure YouTube

  1. Enable YouTube Data API v3 in the Google Cloud Console.
  2. Create an API key as YOUTUBE_API_KEY.
  3. Restrict the key to YouTube Data API v3 when possible.

Install and test locally

git clone https://github.com/campus-experts/DevRel-Discord-Bot.git
cd DevRel-Discord-Bot
python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
cp .env.example .env

Set DISCORD_TOKEN and YOUTUBE_API_KEY in .env, then run:

python main.py

The job looks back seven days and posts both digests whenever it is invoked. The cron schedule is responsible for running it on Thursday.

Sparked Host cron setup

Create a weekly cron job that:

  1. Runs on Thursday.
  2. Uses the repository root as its working directory.
  3. Provides DISCORD_TOKEN and YOUTUBE_API_KEY.
  4. Runs python main.py.

Equivalent command:

cd /path/to/DevRel-Discord-Bot && /path/to/python main.py

If one source fails, the process reports failure after attempting both.

Configuration

config/config.yaml controls:

  • GitHub YouTube channel and Discord destination
  • GitHub Blog feed and Discord destination
  • Blog keywords
  • Number of entries and candidate search pool

The process expects these environment variables:

DISCORD_TOKEN=your-discord-bot-token
YOUTUBE_API_KEY=your-youtube-api-key

Project structure

DevRel-Discord-Bot/
├── bot/
│   └── __init__.py
├── config/config.yaml       # Non-secret configuration
├── utils/
│   ├── blog_fetcher.py      # GitHub Blog RSS fetcher
│   ├── embeds.py            # Discord embed builders
│   └── youtube_api.py       # YouTube API wrapper
├── main.py                  # Cron script: fetch, post, exit
├── requirements.txt
└── tests/

Troubleshooting

No messages are posted

  • Confirm the cron job runs on Thursday UTC.
  • Confirm both channel IDs are correct.
  • Confirm the bot has Send Messages and Embed Links permissions.
  • Check the cron process output for API or Discord errors.

KeyError: 'YOUTUBE_API_KEY'

  • Set the variable in Sparked Host's job environment or in a local .env.

YouTube API 403

  • Confirm YouTube Data API v3 is enabled and the key has remaining quota.