Information

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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:

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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.

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 "your-email@example.com"
       • 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 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 ina