Discord Bot Node.js and Typescript Boilerplate

A template implementation of a Discord bot using Node.js and Typescript

See the implementation of a sample command at src/commands/example.ts

This is starter code for running a single server discord bot. The server's ID is an environment variable. However, this could be reworked to get server(guild) IDs another way

Setup

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Local Development

• Make sure you have Node installed and are using version 16.^, have git installed, a Discord account, and have a GitHub account
• Clone this repository and then:
  1. cd <this-cloned-repo-location>
  2. Create a new repository on GitHub for your new project to duplicate your cloned repository into
  3. git remote set-url origin <url-of-new-repo>
  4. git push -u origin master
• Create a .env file in the project's root directory and add environment variables
  • Add BOT_TOKEN=YOUR_BOT_TOKEN_HERE Get Discord Bot ID
  • Add GUILD_ID=YOUR_GUILD_ID_HERE
    • In Discord, open your User Settings by clicking the Settings Cog next to your user name on the bottom.
    • Go to Appearance and enable Developer Mode under the Advanced section, then close User Settings.
    • Open your Discord server, right-click on the server name, then select Copy ID
    • Paste the Server ID in you .env file
    • If desired, you can disable Developer Mode now.
• Run npm run build then npm start
• If properly setup, you should see the following in your console:

  Env variables loaded successfully
  Starting Discord bot client...
  Discord bot client ready!

• Start customizing commands in src/commands/example.ts
• Or create a new command in src/commands

  // src/commands/newCommand.ts
  import { SlashCommandBuilder } from "@discordjs/builders";
  import { MessageEmbed } from "discord.js";
  import { Command } from "../interfaces/Command"; 
  
  export const newCommand : Command = {
      data: new SlashCommandBuilder()
                  // command entered as: /testcommand
                  .setName('testcommand')
                  .setDescription('description of command'),
      run: async (interaction) => {
          // allow for response to take longer than 3 seconds
          await interaction.deferReply() 
  
          const embedResponse = new MessageEmbed();
          embedResponse.setTitle('Response title here')
          embedResponse.setDescription('Response description here')
  
          await interaction.editReply({embeds: [embedResponse]});
      }
  }

• then in src/_CommandList.ts append your new command to the list:

  import { Command } from "./interfaces/Command";
  import { command } from "./commands/example";
  import { newCommand } from "./commands/newCommand"
  
  export const CommandList: Command[] = [command, newCommand];

Deploy to Heroku

• BEFORE DEPLOYING TO HEROKU: FOLLOW THE LOCAL DEVELOPMENT GUIDE to setup repository for your bot and ensure it works properly with discord in your local dev environment
• Ensure Procfile (no extension) exists in your project's root directory with contents:

  worker: npm start

• Create a Heroku App
• Set up Automatic Deployments with Github
• Ensure you have your most recent BOT_TOKEN from you Discord Bot admin panel
• Set config vars on the settings page of your Heroku app dashboard:

  BOT_TOKEN=YOUR_BOT_TOKEN_HERE
  GUILD_ID=YOUR_GUILD_ID_HERE