Guides
Discord bot guides
Plain explanations for server owners: making bots with AI, setting them up in Discord and keeping them online.
Getting started
How to make a Discord bot with AI, without coding
A step by step guide to creating your own Discord bot: describe it, let AI write the discord.js code, create the bot in the Developer Portal and run it.
7 min readRead
Getting started
Create a Discord bot token and invite link, step by step
How to create an application in the Discord Developer Portal, copy the bot token, find the client id, set intents and build the invite link with the right scopes.
6 min readRead
Concepts
Discord slash commands explained: how bots receive them
How slash commands work for bot makers: registration, guild or global, options, permissions, the three second rule, deferring replies and ephemeral messages.
7 min readRead
Concepts
Discord gateway intents explained: which ones your bot needs
What gateway intents are, which three are privileged (Presence, Server Members, Message Content), how to switch them on and what changes at 100 servers.
6 min readRead
Hosting
How to host a Discord bot: VPS, Docker and panels compared
Ways to keep a Discord bot online all day: a VPS with pm2, Docker, a Pterodactyl panel, a Node.js host or a home computer, with the trade-offs of each.
7 min readRead
Concepts
discord.js vs discord.py: which library should you use?
A fair comparison of discord.js and discord.py for bot makers: language, slash commands, ecosystem, hosting and which one fits your project.
6 min readRead
Concepts
Discord bot permissions and role hierarchy, explained
Why a bot cannot give a role or ban a member, how the role hierarchy works, which permissions to give and why you should not use Administrator.
6 min readRead
Getting started
How to write prompts that give you a working Discord bot
What to include when you describe a Discord bot to an AI: commands, permissions, data, messages and limits, with good and weak examples to copy from.
7 min readRead
Security
Discord bot token security: what to do and what to avoid
Why the bot token is a password, how to store it with a .env file, what to do if it leaks, and the habits that protect your server and your bot.
5 min readRead
Concepts
How to add AI answers to a Discord bot, safely and cheaply
Add an /ask command to your Discord bot with any OpenAI-compatible API: key handling, cooldowns, length limits, mention filtering and deferred replies.
7 min readRead
Hosting
Discord bot not responding: a checklist to find the cause
Why a Discord bot is offline or ignores commands, or says "The application did not respond": token, intents, commands, permissions and timing.
6 min readRead