PulseCord

A self-hostable Discord bot that plays YouTube audio in voice channels. Post a YouTube link (or use !play) and the bot joins your voice channel and streams the audio.

Because the code is open source and self-hosted, anyone can run their own instance — no single bot to shut down.

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Commands

Command	Description
!play <youtube-url>	Joins your voice channel and plays the video's audio
A bare YouTube URL	Same as !play — just paste the link
!stop	Stops playback and disconnects the bot

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Prerequisites

Install these before anything else.

1. Node.js (v16 or later)

Download from nodejs.org.

Verify: node --version

2. yt-dlp

The bot uses yt-dlp to stream YouTube audio. It must be installed and available on your system PATH.

Windows:

winget install yt-dlp.yt-dlp

macOS:

brew install yt-dlp

Linux:

sudo pip install yt-dlp

Verify: yt-dlp --version

Restart your terminal after installing so the PATH is updated.

3. ffmpeg

Used to transcode the audio stream.

Windows:

winget install Gyan.FFmpeg

macOS:

brew install ffmpeg

Linux:

sudo apt install ffmpeg

Verify: ffmpeg -version

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Setting Up a Discord Bot

1. Create the application

1. Go to the Discord Developer Portal
2. Click New Application and give it a name
3. Go to the Bot tab in the left sidebar
4. Click Add Bot
5. Under Token, click Reset Token and copy the token — you'll need this later

2. Enable privileged intents

Still on the Bot tab, scroll down to Privileged Gateway Intents and enable:

• Server Members Intent
• Message Content Intent

Click Save Changes.

3. Invite the bot to your server

1. Go to the OAuth2 → URL Generator tab
2. Under Scopes, check bot
3. Under Bot Permissions, check:
   • Read Messages / View Channels
   • Send Messages
   • Connect
   • Speak
4. Copy the generated URL at the bottom and open it in your browser to invite the bot to your server

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Installation

git clone https://github.com/ashindlecker/PulseCord.git
cd discord-music-bot
npm install

Copy the example environment file and add your bot token:

cp .env.example .env

Open .env and replace the placeholder with your token from the Developer Portal:

DISCORD_TOKEN=your_bot_token_here

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Running the Bot

Development (runs directly with ts-node, no build step):

npm run dev

Production (compile first, then run):

npm run build
npm start

You should see Bot ready: YourBotName#1234 in the console when it connects successfully.

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Dependencies

Package	Purpose
discord.js	Discord API client
@discordjs/voice	Voice channel connections and audio playback
@discordjs/opus	Opus audio codec
ffmpeg-static	Bundled ffmpeg fallback for audio transcoding
dotenv	Loads the bot token from .env
yt-dlp (system)	Streams YouTube audio — must be installed separately

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License

MIT