Snowball

A discord bot to enable a shared, sisyphean task of "number go up"

Image by Jill Wellington

"Then if the countess is Sisyphus," Daisy concluded, "I suppose we're..." "The boulder," Lady Westcliff said succinctly.

-Lisa Kleypas, It Happened One Autumn

Installation

Requisites

• Python 3.8+
• golang-migrate
  • install instructions
• Docker + docker-compose
  • Only if you want to run this locally
• If you plan to run this on your own:
  • Set up discord bot account
  • ⚠️ This, again, is only if you intend to host the bot yourself.
• Pipenv
  • Install pipenv pip install pipenv
  • Run pipenv install
• Configure your docker-compose.override.yml file
  • An example docker-compose.override.example.yml has been provided with the expected configuration variables.

Building

The bot is currently set up to run in a docker container for your convenience, but isn't required to run if you'd rather set up a service with it. These commands all assume you'll be running in the container.

• Run make build

Initializing locally

• Run make migrate to set up/update the local db
• Run make run to start the container in docker-compose

Note

There's a near infinite number of migration tools to choose from, and using a golang one in a python project may seem odd, but I like it best and am most familiar with it, so that's what's doing.

Bot Usage

The premise of the bot interaction is a shared channel of people trying to alternate counting to the highest they can.

chat example:

@Snowball[bot] (11:00:00) Hello from Snowball bot.
I just restarted, your last valid count was 0

@JannaBNana (11:00:45) 1
✅

@MertinsMcHuman (11:12:05) 2
✅

@ASpigotOfSpanners(11:12:05) 2
🌨

@ASpigotOfSpanners (11:13:30) _3 _2 * 3 -
✅

@JannaBNana (11:14) 5
❎

@Snowball[bot] (11:14) The cycle begins anew

@MertinsMcHuman (11:15) 1
✅

@MertinsMcHuman (11:15) 2
🎭

@Snowball[bot] (11:15) A counting so nice, you made it twice?

Channels

The snowball bot currently only allows for a single channel in a server to be the counting server, it looks for the channel configured in the docker-compose.override.yml file under the BOT_DISCORD_CHANNEL variable, any messages outside of that channel are ignored.

Counting

Valid countings

• Message that is just an integer of the expected next count
  • eg. (1, 2, 3, 4, etc.)
• Reverse Polish Notation math that resolves to the expected next count
  • This is just shimmed out to the linux dc desk calculator, so any math that is valid for this is valid for snowball
  • dc doesn't use the - symbol for negative numbers, but the _ and only used - as a subtraction operator, so in the above example:
    • _3 _2 * 3 -
    • negative 3 times negative 2 equals 6
    • 6 minus 3 equals 3
    • which is the expected next count

Invalid countings

• Message that is just an integer not of the expected next count
• Reverse Polish Notation math that does not resolves to the expected next count

Ignored messaged

• Any message that doesn't start with either a digit or a _ (dc uses `_`` for negative numbers)

Reactions

• ✅: You made the correct count, the count has been increased
• 🌨: You tried to count too close to someone else and the bot could not acquire the mutex lock, it's okay to try again (likely with the next expected count after the other person got their count in)
• 🎭: You tried to count twice in a row, that's not a breaking no-no, but it IS a no-no, let other people have their turn
• ❎: Unfortunately you did not make the correct count, the count for your server has been reset to zero and the sisyphean ordeal must begin anew.

💜