Discord Bot Go Template

A minimal and modular architecture for building Discord bots in Go using the Disgo library.

Features

• Support for slash commands (e.g., /help)
• Event handling for messages and reactions
• Environment-based configuration using .env files
• Makefile for streamlined build and run processes
• Support for multiple environments (dev and prod)

Project Structure

discord-bot-go-template/
├── .env                # Environment variables
├── .gitignore
├── go.mod
├── go.sum
├── LICENSE
├── Makefile
├── README.md
├── cmd/
│   └── bot/
│       └── main.go     # Entry point of the application
└── internal/
    ├── bot/
    │   ├── bot.go      # Bot client setup and connection
    │   ├── commands/
    │   │   ├── help.go     # /help command implementation
    │   │   └── manager.go  # Command registration logic
    │   └── eventhandler/
    │       ├── event-handler.go    # Event handling logic
    │       └── example-reaction.go # Example reaction handler
    └── config/
        └── config.go   # Configuration loading

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Go 1.23 or higher
• A Discord application with a bot token
• A Discord server where you have permission to add bots

Installation

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/sebferrer/discord-bot-go-template.git
   cd discord-bot-go-template

2. Set up environment variables:

   Create a .env file in the root directory with the following content:

   DISCORD_BOT_TOKEN=your_bot_token_here
   DISCORD_CLIENT_ID=your_client_id_here
   DISCORD_GUILD_ID=your_guild_id_here
   ENV=dev

   • DISCORD_BOT_TOKEN: Your bot's token from the Discord Developer Portal.
   • DISCORD_CLIENT_ID: Your application's unique identifier on Discord, used for bot authorization and OAuth2 flows.
   • DISCORD_GUILD_ID: The ID of your Discord server (used in development mode).
   • ENV: Set to dev for development mode or prod for production mode.

3. Run the bot:

• Run directly without saving the binary (temporary build):

  make run

• Build a binary and run it:

  make start

make start automatically triggers make build under the hood.

You can also run the build step manually:

make build

This will compile the bot into bin/discord-bot(.exe), which you can run directly if needed.

Usage

Once the bot is running and added to your Discord server, you can use the following command:

• /help: Lists all available commands.

Development

Adding New Commands

1. Create a new file in internal/bot/commands/, e.g., ping.go.
2. Implement the command logic following the structure in help.go.
3. Register the new command in manager.go.

Event Handling

To handle new events:

1. Add a new handler function in internal/bot/eventhandler/.
2. Register the handler in event-handler.go.

Makefile Commands

make help    # Display available make commands
make build   # Build the Go binary to bin/discord-bot
make start   # Build and run the saved binary from ./bin
make run     # Build and run the project without saving the binary
make clean   # Remove the built binary
make deps    # Ensure module dependencies are up to date

License

This project is licensed under the Apache-2.0 License.