Self hosting

Running your own copy means your own bot account, your own database and your own rules: rename it, change it, and switch off what you don't want. The code is MIT licensed. The one condition is that the copyright notice in LICENSE stays with every copy you share.

What you need

• A Discord application with a bot. Create one on the Developer Portal, and copy its token and client ID.
• Both privileged intents switched on for the bot: Message Content and Server Members. The bot won't start without them, and says which one is missing.
• Your own Discord user ID, so the bot knows you're its owner.
• A MongoDB database, version 7.0 or newer. MongoDB Atlas's free tier is plenty, or use the one in docker-compose.yml.
• Node.js 24.11 or newer, unless you use Docker.

The full setup guide walks through each of these from scratch.

Three ways to run it

1. The published Docker image: nothing to build

Every release is published as ghcr.io/kkkermit/testify, for x86 (amd64) and ARM (arm64) machines. Put docker-compose.yml, docker-compose.image.yml and your .env in one folder, then:

docker compose -f docker-compose.yml -f docker-compose.image.yml up -d

This also starts a MongoDB beside the bot. It follows the newest release; set TESTIFY_TAG in .env, such as TESTIFY_TAG=2.4.0, to stay on one.

2. Docker, built from the code

git clone https://github.com/Kkkermit/Testify.git
cd Testify
cp .env.example .env      # fill it in, or run `npm run setup`
docker compose up -d
docker compose logs -f bot

3. Node.js

git clone https://github.com/Kkkermit/Testify.git
cd Testify
npm ci
npm run setup             # asks for each value and checks it as you type
npm run build
npm start

For working on the code, use npm run setup -- --dev and npm run dev instead. That runs a separate test bot from .env.development and restarts on every save.

docs/hosting.md is the full hosting guide: reverse proxies, what's in the image and what isn't, which hosts can run a bot, and a troubleshooting table.

Configuration

Everything is set in .env, and npm run setup writes it for you. .env.example lists every variable with a comment, and testify.lol/docs/configuration shows the same list as a table.

Variable	Required	What it is
DISCORD_TOKEN	Yes	The bot's token
DISCORD_CLIENT_ID	Yes	The application's ID
DISCORD_OWNER_IDS	Yes	Your user ID, and any other owners', separated by commas
MONGODB_URI	Yes	The database's connection string
DISABLED_FEATURES	No	Features to run without, such as music,casino
DISCORD_DEV_GUILD_ID	No	Registers commands in one test server only, while you develop
DASHBOARD_*	No	The web dashboard; see The dashboard
SITE_*	No	The website: the landing page, docs and source browser. On by default
CHANNEL_*_LOG	No	Channels for the bot's errors, servers joined and left, DMs, command use and feedback

Never commit or share .env. It holds your token and your database password. If either leaks, reset it straight away: Developer Portal → your application → Bot → Reset Token.

Switching features off

Not every server wants a casino. Name what you want to run without, separated by commas, and restart:

DISABLED_FEATURES=music,casino

Those features vanish from Discord's command menu, /help, the dashboard and the docs, and nothing in the database is deleted. The README's list has every feature that can go, and Switching off a whole feature explains how it works.

Music

Music needs FFmpeg and yt-dlp. The Docker image includes both. Outside Docker, npm run music:setup fetches yt-dlp and tells you whether FFmpeg is installed. YouTube changes often, so keep yt-dlp up to date; /music status says which version the bot is using.

Where to host it

Anywhere that runs a long-lived process: a VPS, a Raspberry Pi, Railway, Fly.io, Render, or a machine at home. Serverless hosts such as Vercel, Netlify and Cloudflare Workers can't run it, because a Discord bot holds a connection open for its whole life. The bot needs no inbound ports: the website and dashboard listen only on your own machine until you put a reverse proxy in front of them.

Keeping it up to date

See Releases and updates.