juanm4t / debatebot

A discord bot designed to compile statistics on a single-server voice chat.

Debate Bot

This is a Discord Bot written in JS that monitors Discord Voice Channels and records statistics about them.

Background

Someone approached me and asked me to make a Discord Bot that records stats about Discord Voice Channels (VCs). I work mainly in python, so I set out and found a Python Discord API. After figuring out that Discord.py (the Python Discord API) didn't support most VC features, I switched to Discord.js, (the JavaScript Discord API). This was a bit hard for me for a couple of reasons:

• I haven't ever worked with Node.js.
• I'm not that familiar with JS.

(In fact, this was actually my first time working on a project mainly built in JS.) After finishing this project I've concluded that:

• I don't like JS.
• Working in JS wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.
• JS can actually be useful

But hey, at least I've got a working bot. (Please excuse any bad programming practices.)

Installation

Here's how you should set it up:

Machine Prerequisites

• Set up a VPS or something similar - This is a Discord bot, so if you want it to be constantly running, you need somewhere to run it while you're offline.
• Install Node and NPM. You need to install Discord.js. (npm install discord.js should work just fine)
• Install FFMPEG. This is important! If on a linux-based system, sudo apt-get install ffmpeg should do the trick.

Getting the Code

• Clone this repo into a folder labeled Debate Bot or Debate Code or something else that makes sense.
• In the project folder, add a .env file using your favorite text editor. The contents of .env should look exactly like this for now: DISCORD_BOT_SECRET=. We'll add a the bot's token here later on.

Setting up Discord

• Make a Discord account if you don't already have one.
• Make a server to add this bot to (if you don't already have one). This bot is designeed work with one server at a time.
• Go to the Discord Developer Portal and make a new app.
• Add a bot to your Discord app.
• Get your bot's token, and add it to your .env file. Your .env file should now look like DISCORD_BOT_SECRET=XXXX, where XXXX is your bot's token. Remember, there shouldn't be any whitespace around the =.
• Invite your bot to your server by going to this link: scope=bot&client_id=XXXX where XXXX is your Discord app's client ID. (Not to be confused with your bot's token)

Running the Whole Shebang

• After copleting the steps above, open shell and go to th project folder. Enter node index.js to run the bot. If everything is working, you should see Successful Login followed by My username is 'XXXX' (where XXXX is the username of the bot).
• In your discord server, try typing in !ping to check if the bot is online, then join a VC channel and enter !debate to start the bot's main feautre.
• You can check your stats by entering !stats.
• You can use !help for some help.
• You might have to fiddle with the code or install some extra dependencies depending on your system.

TODO

• Add stat permenence through JSON
• Set up VC transcription
• Create Leaderboard

Credit

The majority of this code is mine, although I did follow this tutorial to get started.

Notes

Please open an issue if there is any problem with the bot itself.