jarle/Bun Create a Discord bot

Create a Discord bot

Discord.js works out of the box with Bun. Let's write a simple bot. First create a directory and initialize it with bun init.

mkdir my-bot
cd my-bot
bun init

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Now install Discord.js.

bun add discord.js

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Before we go further, we need to go to the Discord developer portal, login/signup, create a new Application, then create a new Bot within that application. Follow the official guide for step-by-step instructions.

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Once complete, you'll be presented with your bot's private key. Let's add this to a file called .env.local. Bun automatically reads this file and loads it into process.env.

<Note>This is an example token that has already been invalidated.</Note>

DISCORD_TOKEN=YOUR_BOT_TOKEN_HERE

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Be sure to add .env.local to your .gitignore! It is dangerous to check your bot's private key into version control.

node_modules
.env.local

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Now let's actually write our bot in a new file called bot.ts.

// import discord.js
import { Client, Events, GatewayIntentBits } from "discord.js";

// create a new Client instance
const client = new Client({ intents: [GatewayIntentBits.Guilds] });

// listen for the client to be ready
client.once(Events.ClientReady, c => {
  console.log(`Ready! Logged in as ${c.user.tag}`);
});

// login with the token from .env.local
client.login(process.env.DISCORD_TOKEN);

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Now we can run our bot with bun run. It may take a several seconds for the client to initialize the first time you run the file.

bun run bot.ts

Ready! Logged in as my-bot#1234

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You're up and running with a bare-bones Discord.js bot! This is a basic guide to setting up your bot with Bun; we recommend the official discord.js docs for complete information on the discord.js API.