Next.js Discord Forum

The Next.js Discord server indexed in the web

Getting Started

This repo contains the code for both the Discord bot that index the posts and the front-end app

Installing the dependencies

pnpm install

Configuring the env vars

If you are developing locally, you need to create .env files in both the apps/web and app/bot folder. Refer to the table below for all the env vars in the project

Project: apps/web

Name	Description	Required?
DATABASE_URL	The read-only connection string to connect to the DB, used to query the posts and messages	✔️
REVALIDATE_SECRET	The secret that allows remote revalidations to the app cache. This var should also be set in the bot app	✔️
NEXT_PUBLIC_BASE_URL	The URL where the app is hosted	❌

Project: apps/bot

Name	Description	Required?
DISCORD_BOT_TOKEN	The token for the bot. If you don't have a bot yet, go to the bot project section for more details on how to create one	✔️
DISCORD_CLIENT_ID	Client ID of the bot app	✔️
DEV_GUILD_ID	The ID of the Discord server to register dev commands with pnpm dev:register-commands	❌
PUBLIC_PROFILE_ROLE_ID	The ID of the role to make Discord profiles public in the database	❌
HELPER_ROLE_ID	The ID of the role that allows for selecting answer on behalf of owner	❌
MODERATOR_ROLE_ID	The ID of the role to set moderator status in the database (also can select answer)	❌
REGULAR_MEMBER_ROLE_ID	The ID of the role to add to users when they reach the points milestone	❌
INDEXABLE_CHANNEL_IDS	Comma-separated list of forum channels to index	✔️
MOD_LOG_CHANNEL_ID	The ID of the channel to log things for mods	❌
DATABASE_URL	The connection string to connect to the DB	✔️
REVALIDATE_SECRET	The same secret from the web project	✔️
WEB_URL	The address of the web service, used to make the call to revalidate the cache	✔️

Project: packages/db (only necessary if you plan to run migrations)

Name	Description	Required?
DATABASE_URL	The admin connection string to connect to the DB, used to modify the schema	✔️

Running the development projects

To run both the web and bot projects at the same time, use the following command:

pnpm dev

Note: You don't need to run both projects always at the same time, they can work separately

Creating your own bot instance

You will need your own bot to run the project locally, it is also recommended to create a new Discord server as a testing playground.

1. Go to https://discord.com/developers/applications and click on New Application
2. In the General Information page, copy the APPLICATION ID, this is the value of the DISCORD_CLIENT_ID env var
3. Go to the Bot page, click on Reset Token. Copy the new token and store it in the DISCORD_BOT_TOKEN env var. DO NOT share this token anywhere
4. In the "Privileged Gateway Intents" section, enable SERVER MEMBERS INTENT and MESSAGE CONTENT INTENT

To invite the bot to your own server, go to the OAuth2 > URL Generator page, select the bot scope and add the following permissions:

• Manage Roles
• Send Messages
• Send Messages in Threads
• Manage Message
• Manage Threads
• Embed Links
• Read Message History
• Add Reactions
• Use Slash Commands

Copy the Generated URL and open it in your browser

Registering Discord commands

To use the context and slash commands you first need to register them in Discord. The easiest way to do that is by running this command:

pnpm dev:register-commands

Notice the dev: prefix in the command. Discord limits how many times you can register commands with their API, but by registering the command in a specific server you can do this as many times as you want. You need the DEV_GUILD_ID env var set to use this command

Creating the database

This project uses PostgreSQL for the database, the easiest way to get it up and running is by using Docker. Start the database with this command:

docker compose up

And use this for the environment variable:

DATABASE_URL='postgresql://nextjsuser:nextjspassword@localhost:5432/nextjsforum'

If for some reason you want to start the database from scratch you can use the following command (this will erase all the data!):

docker compose down -v

Running migrations

Once the database is running, add the previous DATABASE_URL variable to the packages/db/.env file and run this command:

pnpm migrate