Installation

Clone bot template, install dependencies, fill config file, invite link (scopes) and more to get started

Now, when we have done the Basic Setup, we are ready to make our discord bot with the awesome template. Let's dig into it.

Clone The Template

To get started, you need to get a skeleton code structure for your discord bot to work upon. Since this guide is based on my Discord.js Bot Template I made with ❤️ for you, you need to go to the page in order to clone it, or simply follow these instructions.

  1. Make a new folder that will contain all your discord bot projects. Let's say, we name it Discord Projects.

  2. Get inside the folder and open terminal/command prompt. Learn more here on how to.

  3. Now you need to copy paste this code inside the terminal to clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/NamVr/DiscordBot-Template.git

Now you have successfully cloned the template. At this instance, you may want to check your Discord Projects folder and see a new folder named DiscordBot-Template. Go ahead, and rename the folder to the project name of your upcoming bot.

I have assumed that you have renamed the folder to Mandy. Don't mind me, it is just a random generated project name using this tool.

Installing Dependencies

Now, in our Discord Projects folder, we have a folder named Mandy. It's time to open our code editor, Visual Studio Code.

  1. Open Visual Studio Code.

  2. Open the Mandy folder.

  3. Wait for VSC to initialize the project and open it.

  4. Now you need to open the Integrated Terminal in VSC, you can find it in Terminal menu tab.

There you go. Project Coding Environment is setup and you are good to code and of course run some sneaky terminal commands.

To install dependencies, run this command:

npm i

And yeah... That's it! You will now notice a big node_modules folder appearing in your project directory. You will also notice it is faded, because it is ignored by git to be pushed into remote server! You can learn more about .gitignore over here.

Application Configuration

It's time to fill the configuration of your project. Before doing this, I'll assume you already have a bot application registered at the Discord Developer Portal so we will not waste time in learning that.

Notice a config.json file in your project directory. Do you see it? Let's open it and fill details of our project for the template to know - what to do.

config.json
{
	"prefix": "!",
	"token": "your-bot-token",
	"owner": "owner-id",
	"client_id": "bot-id",
	"test_guild_id": "dev-server-id"
}

That is a default config, and you guessed it (maybe)! This won't work and of course we need to edit the config properties one by one.

prefix

This is where you setup prefixes for legacy (message-based) commands. Feel free to put and replace your own prefix, but we do recommend to keep your prefix in less than 10 characters.

token

You need to replace your-bot-token with your actual bot token that you can get from your Application => Bot Developer Portal Settings. Paste it there. Make sure the token is covered with double quotes "&#&ABCXYZ" (like that maybe).

owner

This property is used to define the bot owner. Feeling proud? Fill up your discord user ID in that place!

client_id

This is where you will paste your bot's application/user ID. Simply get it from Developer Portal or Right Click your bot in your server => Copy ID.

test_guild_id

We of course recommend you making a development server for only you - and your bot to hang out and do crazy experiments and meanwhile learning as well. Put a server ID, and we will use that to register slash commands in there.

And, that's all? Yeah.

Invite & Scopes

It's time to invite your bot with proper scopes. You will at least need two mandatory scopes to prevent chaos. bot and applications.commands.

I'll actually not waste time here to explain it, because the official community has done it very nicely.

Oh my god, how do I bring my bot online!?!?

Run Your Application

If you have done all correctly, it's time to bring your bot online and running. Let's do it.

  • Open the VSC Integrated Terminal and type this command:

npm i

"I see some logs right there"

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