Information

This Discord bot is SERVERLESS which means it can run for FREE and be ALWAYS online on Vercel!
You can also treat this repository as a template for making serverless bots with the discohook library.

Table of Contents

• Information
• Table of Contents
• Features
• File Structure
• Running the bot
  • Run Locally
  • Deploy Online
  • Now make it your own!
• Links and Resources

Features

• /ping - a simple command that tells you the bot's latency.
• And you can easily create and add more commands yourself!

An example deployment of BasicBot is at: https://basic-bot.vercel.app (Not recommended to share publically)
Invite the bot and test the features: https://discord.com/oauth2/authorize?client_id=1257121896021889094

File Structure

.
├─ src/                       # Source code
│  ├─ cogs/                   # All command files
│  │  └─ ping.py              # Ping command
│  └─ bot.py                  # Defines the Discord bot
├─ .gitignore                 # Hides certain files
├─ LICENSE                    # License
├─ README.md                  # Defines this README page
├─ example-config.json        # Example of a config.json file
├─ main.py                    # Entry point
├─ requirements.txt           # Library dependencies
└─ vercel.json                # Vercel deployment configuration

Running the bot

A quick way to run your own instance of the bot is to click the Vercel Deploy Button:

Run Locally

1. Make sure you have these first.

   • Python 3.9+ - to run Python files.
     • Run python -V in Terminal to check what Python version you have.
     • Any version under 3.9 will probably result in errors when deployed to Vercel.
   • Visual Studio Code - a code editor to write your code in.
     • You might also want the Discord Presence extension to show people you're editing your project.
   • A Discord bot - make one for free and copy these things:
     • Application ID ➔ Located in General Information, used to identify your app in requests.
     • Public Key ➔ Located in General Information, used to validate interactions are coming from Discord.
     • Token ➔ Located in Bots, used to authenticate requests, don't share this with anyone!
   • Github Account - to make a GitHub repository for your project.
     • Repositories (like this one) are a place to store code, files, and preserve commit history.
     • This is used by Vercel later on to deploy your code automatically.
   • Either one of the following to commit code to your repo:
     • Git - a CLI command to update changes by typing things like git commit in Terminal.
     • Github Desktop - an app that's easier to use than running Git commands in Terminal.
   • Ngrok - a CLI command that starts a reverse proxy, making your localhost visible to the internet.
     • Create an Ngrok account.
     • Install the CLI command.
       • Windows:
         • Download ZIP file from Ngrok downloads and click keep anyway if it says unsafe.
         • Extract and move ngrok.exe to a folder like C:\Program Files\Ngrok\bin.
         • Search "Edit the system environment variables" in Windows search and click it.
         • Click Environment Variables, under System variables select the Path variable and click Edit.
         • Click New, paste the file path of the folder like C:\Program Files\Ngrok\bin and click Ok.
         • You may need to whitelist it via Windows Security ➔ Protection History ➔ Find and click Allow.
       • Linux: Run this one command in Terminal:

         curl -s https://ngrok-agent.s3.amazonaws.com/ngrok.asc | \
         sudo tee /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/ngrok.asc >/dev/null && \
         echo "deb https://ngrok-agent.s3.amazonaws.com buster main" | \
         sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ngrok.list && \
         sudo apt update && sudo apt install ngrok

     • Find your Ngrok token from dashboard and then run ngrok config add-authtoken <token> in Terminal.
     • P.S. Discord recommends using Ngrok for local development in their official JavaScript Tutorial.
     • NOTE: Ngrok's Free Tier has a 60 requests/min ratelimit. For a higher one, use Cloudflare Tunnels.

2. Clone this repository.

   • Git:
     • Open Terminal at the location you want your project to be like C:\Users\imp\Documents\Projects.
       • You can open File Explorer to that location, right-click an empty space and click Open in Terminal.
     • Run git clone https://github.com/imptype/BasicBot to copy this repo into a BasicBot folder.
   • Github Desktop:
     • Open GitHub Desktop (and login if not already) and select File ➔ Clone Repository ➔ URL
     • Paste the URL https://github.com/imptype/BasicBot and choose a location, then click Clone.

3. Open the BasicBot folder in Visual Studio Code.

   • Whenever you make changes to a file, remember to do CTRL+S to save.
   • And from now on, use the Terminal in Visual Studio Code to run any of the commands below.

4. Rename example-config.json to config.json and paste the values in the quotes.

   • DISCORD_APPLICATION_ID is your Discord Application ID.
   • DISCORD_PUBLIC_KEY is your Discord Public Key.
   • DISCORD_BOT_TOKEN is your Discord Bot Token, don't share it!
   • ERROR_LOG_WEBHOOK is a Discord webhook URL that relays error messages your bot encounters.
     • Discord channel settings ➔ Integrations ➔ New Webhook ➔ Copy Webhook URL.
   • SYNC_PASSWORD is a password set by you and you type it when you sync commands later on.

5. Install requirements. A venv is recommended.

   • Run python -m venv venv to create a venv folder.
   • Activate the venv.
     • Windows: venv/Scripts/activate
     • Linux: source venv/bin/activate
   • Run pip install -r requirements.txt to install dependencies to that venv folder.
     • discohook subclasses the ASGI app Starlette, it adds an /interactions route and Discord functions.
     • uvicorn is the ASGI server used to run the ASGI app and start a web server.
   • To deactivate run deactivate. You still need to be in venv when running the bot though.

6. Run uvicorn main:app to start the web server.

   • By default this is located at web browser address 127.0.0.1:8000 AKA localhost:8000.
   • Only you and devices on your local network can access it, so we'll need a reverse proxy.
   • You can do CTRL+C to stop running.

7. In another Terminal, run ngrok http 8000 to start the reverse proxy.

   • This returns an ngrok URL like https://123123123.ngrok.io or ends with ngrok-free.app.
   • Now anyone on the internet can visit this URL and see your website, including Discord's API.
   • You can do CTRL+C to stop running.

8. Set the Interactions Endpoint URL to <url>/interactions where url is your Ngrok URL.

   • This is located in General Information of your app's Discord developers page.
   • discohook recieves Discord interactions/requests by default through the /interactions route.
   • Make sure your Uvicorn server and Ngrok proxy are still running or it will fail to set.

9. Visit the /api/dash route of your website to register slash commands for the first time.

   • Visit 127.0.0.1/api/dash or localhost/api/dash or <ngrok-url>/api/dash either one works.
   • You need to type the value of SYNC_PASSWORD you set in config.json.
   • This route returns a JSON of all the commands that have been succesfully registered to Discord.
   • You only need to sync commands when you create/update public facing things, like slash command names.
   • You can only do ~200 command creates per day, so don't spam this route.

Now invite your bot to your server if you haven't already and run the slash commands!

Remember:
  ➔ Whenever you start coding, start Uvicorn and Ngrok and update your Interactions Endpoint URL.
  ➔ Whenever you make code changes, CTRL+S to save, CTRL+C Uvicorn and up and enter to start it again.
  ➔ Whenever you change client side stuff, like command options and descriptions, sync your commands again.
  ➔ Sometimes you need to CTRL+R (refresh) your Discord (clears cache) after syncing for commands to show.
  ➔ You can use the uvicorn main:app --reload argument to reload the server automatically when files change.

Deploy Online

1. Make a GitHub repository and link it to the BasicBot folder.

   • Git CLI:
     • Go to Github.com and make an empty repository.
     • Go to Personal Access Tokens in User Settings and create a token for this repository.
       • Make sure the token has Read and write permissions for Contents in Repository Permissions.
     • Open the BasicBot folder in Terminal.
     • Run git init to initialize a new local Git repository.
     • Set your Git configuration:
       • Run git config user.email "[email protected]"
       • Run git config user.name "Your Name"
     • Run git remote add origin https://github.com/your-username/your-repo.git to link them.
     • Stage your files with git add . and commit them with git commit -m "Initial commit".
     • Push your changes to GitHub with git push -u origin main.
   • GitHub Desktop:
     • Open GitHub Desktop (and login if not already) and select File ➔ Add Local Repository.
     • Choose the BasicBot folder and follow the prompts to create a new repository.

2. Login to Vercel and add your GitHub repository.

   • Dashboard ➔ Add New ➔ Project ➔ Adjust Github App Permissions ➔ Auth ➔ Select then Import.
   • Set Build Command to uvicorn main:app.
   • Set Install Command to pip install -r requirements.txt.
   • Paste all your environment variables from config.json into Environment Variables and click Deploy.
   • NOTE: vercel.json uses an edited version of the NPM package @vercel/python to fix event loop issues.

3. Set the Interactions Endpoint URL to <url>/interactions where url is your Vercel URL.

   • Once deployed, click your preview box to know what your 123123123.vercel.app URL is.

Your bot is now online 24/7 in a serverless environment. Cold starts are < 3 seconds, so your bot will reply in time!

Some things to note:
  ➔ Serverless means cache will not retain after ~5 minutes of inactivity.
  ➔ You also can't do things that require a persistent websocket, like listening for message/voice/guild events.
  ➔ You may want to use 2 bots, 1 is a test bot with dev credentials locally, the other with prod credentials on Vercel.
  ➔ If you want to be able to cache properly across multiple simultaneous serverless instances, use Redis / Vercel KV.

Now make it your own!

BasicBot is just a demonstration, so feel free to change the name and add more commands and do whatever you want. If you need inspiration for things to add or to know what's possible, check out the discohook/examples folder, which contains a lot of simple examples like modals, buttons, slash command arguments, etc. You can also check out MazeRace, a small Discord bot that shows how to do things like storing variables inside of custom IDs, image generation, nested and persistent views, and uses a simple database.

Links and Resources

• Discohook Discord: https://discord.gg/xEEpJvE9py
  • If you need help then visit and ask here.
• Discord API Documentation: https://discord.com/developers/docs/interactions/overview
  • Read up what's possible with Interactions on the Discord API.
• Vercel Documentation: https://vercel.com/docs
  • Read up other things you can do on Vercel.