Contributing

Contributing

Getting set up

git clone https://github.com/Trilleo/TriBridge.git
npm install

Node v22 or newer. There is no build step, no test suite and no linter, so there is no npm test — the script does not exist.

Two ways to run it:

Command	Does
npm start	Runs the bot once, the same as node src/index.js
npm run dev	Runs it under nodemon, restarting on any change to a source file or the .env

Running the bot connects to live Discord and Hypixel, with real accounts in real guilds. Don't start it to verify a change unless you have a bot and a guild of your own to point it at. A good deal is testable offline against fakes — see Architecture.

npm run dev restarts on every save, so it reconnects the Minecraft accounts every time — leaving it running while editing will sign them in repeatedly and can get them throttled by Hypixel. Stop it while you work, and start it when you want to try something.

Commit messages

<tag>: <message>, one granular commit per logical change.

Tag	Usage	Example
Feature	Brand-new functionality	Feature: Add cross guilds message sync
Fix	Bugs, crashes, logic errors	Fix: Keep tag markers on reposted messages
Improvement	Existing behaviour, done better	Improvement: Change bot refresh time
Internal	Documentation, comments, repository maintenance	Internal: Reformat README.md
Backend	Dependency or configuration updates	Backend: Update discord.js to 14.25.1
Update	Version bumps	Update: 1.2.1 release

Present tense, specific, no trailing period. The full convention is in docs/COMMIT_STRUCTURE.md.

What a good change looks like

• It carries its own documentation. The changelog entry, the README row and the wiki page ship in the same commit as the code. See the checklist in Adding a command.
• It explains the non-obvious in a comment. Much of this codebase's value is in comments saying why the obvious alternative was worse — a silent drop, a mute, a permission escalation. When you write a rule like that, write the reason next to it. That sentence is what stops the rule being simplified away later.
• It does not weaken a load-bearing guard. The relay loop checks, the single-server check, the chat-queue spacing and the sanitisers in front of bot.chat all exist because the alternative broke something real. Changing one is a deliberate act, not a cleanup.
• It keeps the two meanings of "guild" apart. A Hypixel guild has a guildKey. A Discord server is bridge.discordServerId. Never introduce a bare guildId in new code.

Style

CommonJS, and Prettier with its default settings — 2-space indent, double quotes, semicolons, trailing commas, 80 columns. The settings are in .prettierrc, so an editor that formats on save agrees with the repository instead of fighting it. Reformat with:

npx prettier --write "src/**/*.js"

JSDoc on non-trivial helper functions. Prettier does not reflow comments, and much of this codebase's value is in them — see below.

Reporting things

• Bugs and ideas from outside the server: Issues.
• From inside the server: /request — see Feature requests.

Next

• Architecture
• Adding a command
• Releasing