Discord NodeJS Bot Template

A template for making large or small Discord bots to run on NodeJS.

Structure

For reusability and maintainability of course :)

Bot Modules

Non-miscellaneous commands are added using modules. A module can register command handlers using the CommandRouter, or register its own message handlers.

A conforming bot module should export:

function (commandRouter: typeof CommandRouter, discord?: Discord.Client): any

Both parameters are passed by the CommandRouter when the bot module is loaded with commandRouter.use(Module).

Services

If a bot module uses resources that might also be useful for other modules, or which are so complex they need abstraction into external functions or classes, this functionality is hosted in a service.

Services should (for consistency) export an object.

CommandRouter

The CommandRouter module provides an easy interface for installing bot modules and handling commands. A CommandRouter needs to be initialized with an instance of DiscordClient. The resulting commandRouter can load bot modules, or command handlers can be registered directly with commandRouter.handler().

A callback registered with the CommandRouter is called with 3 arguments:

function callback(
    message: Discord.Message,                     // the received message
    command: { name: string, args: string|null }, // the received command + arguments
    discord: Discord.Client                       // the CommandRouter's Client instance
)

Util

The util folder contains the CommandRouter module and the isAdmin function module which simply returns whether the given user ID is contained in the configured bot admin list (see configuration).

Configuration

To keep things tidy (without too much hardcoded stuff), we have config/index[.example].js. To use the bot, you do need to create config/index.js from the example file provided. The same goes for config/karma[.example].js, to use the karma module.

The default index.js example contains:

• discord
  • token (used to log in to Discord as a registered bot)
  • ownerUserIds (array of user ID's configured as bot owners)
• bot
  • reservedCommands (an array of commands unavailable for modules to register)

And karma[.example].js:

• defaultKarmaStore (used when no karma.json is present yet)

Example

Example usage of everything described above:

const Discord = require('discord.js');
const config = require('./config');

const discord = new Discord.Client();

// Create an instance of CommandRouter
const commandRouter = require('./util/command-router')(discord);

// Set a command handler directly
commandRouter.handler('ping', (message: Discord.Message) => {
    message.reply(`pong (${Date.now() - message.createdTimestamp} ms)`);
});

commandRouter.registerHelpSection({
    name: 'Meta',
    text: '!help\n!ping'
});

// Load a module
const KarmaModule = require('./modules/karma-module');

// Attach module
commandRouter.use(KarmaModule);

discord.login(config.discord.token);