Simple Discord JS Bot

A starter bot and "framework" to build Discord bots from.

Version 2!

This updated version adds some new functionality to allow for the easy creation of more advanced bots, and some updated help as well. The original simple-discord-js-bot code can be found here on the v1.0 tag.

Prerequisites

• Node JS >= 12.0.0
• NPM >= 6.9.0
• Git

Setup

1. Clone this repository: git clone https://github.com/bredmor/simple-discord-js-bot.git then navigate to the new folder named simple-discord-js-bot
2. Install dependencies with npm i
3. Edit config.json, replacing the placeholder values with your desired command prefix and your bot token (If you don't have one yet, see the note below on how to generate one.)
4. Start the bot with node index.js
5. Add the bot to the server of your choice by filling out the details in this handy application and clicking the generated link.

That's it! You can now try out the default commands like !bot help, or create your own and restart the bot to use them.

Note: If you don't already have a Discord bot application setup you can create one by going to the Discord Developer Portal, then create a new application, give it a name, go to the "Bot" tab, then click on "Add Bot", and you're good to go!

Usage

After adding the bot to a server, call its command via !bot commandname where "!bot" is the prefix you defined in config.js and "commandname" is the name of a command defined and exported in the commands folder.

You can safely delete or modify the example commands talk.js and weather.js but it is recommended to keep help.js.

Running the bot permanently

It's recommended that you use a process monitor like PM2 to run the bot instead of just node, that way it can be restarted on crashes and monitored.

If you don't want to keep your computer on 24/7 to host the bot, I recommend a $5/month droplet from DigitalOcean.

Defining Commands

Simply create a new js file in the handlers/commands subdirectory that exports at least a name, description and usage string, as well as an execute() method.

You can additionally provide aliases, cooldown and args. There are examples for all of these keys and their usage in the 3 example commands.

Other Handlers

In addition to simple !command style handlers, you can easily program the bot to listen and respond to any kind of event.

1. Create a subdirectory for the type of handler you want to add, such as the example keywords subdirectory.
2. Define at least one handler in that subdirectory, such as the example handlers/keywords/lahee.js handler. This handler should export at least an execute function and name variable.
3. Instantiate a Loader for that subdirectory in index.js, for example: BotLib.loadHandlers(client, 'keywords'); replacing keywords with the name of your subdirectory. This will create a collection on the client object for that handler type, named after your subdirectory.
4. Create a "dispatcher" in the dispatchers subdirectory that exports a handle function. This function should accept at least the client object, and probably the object representing the event you want to handle, such as a message or userReaction event. The function should find the appropriate handler from the collection created in step 2, and call the execute() function on the handler. The function should then return true, if an event was handled.
5. Register the handler in the appropriate event loop in index.js. For example, if the handler works on message events,you would add it to the client.on('message', => { listener. It can be helpful here to check if the handler executed and force a return to avoid unintentionally continuing to process other handlers on the same event.

Notes

Why is there a ridiculous level of comments? I wrote this package to help someone with little programming experience learn how to write a bot. My hope is that people with little experience programming, or just little experience using node.js will be able to easily create even advanced bots using this "framework".