How To Make a Discord Bot [New Step-By-Step Guide]

This article will focus on how to make a Discord Bot. You’ll need to know a little bit about programming for this. If you’re a novice programmer, don’t worry, its something you can learn and perfect over time.

If you don’t program, dive in too. There are a lot of online resources to learn to program. Moreover, there are a lot of Discord Bots available that you can download and use.

At the end of this article, you’ll have insights into what Discord is, why you need a Bot on Discord, and what a Discord bot can do for you. You’ll also learn about everything you need in setting up a Discord Bot and you’ll have a good idea of how Discord Bots work behind the scenes.

Finally, you’ll learn, a simple example of how to make a discord bot in one programming language. The knowledge can of course be transferred to other languages.

Discord: An Introduction

With over 250 million users, Discord is one of the most popular platforms for gamers to interact. In this giant community for gamers, they could discuss and share information.

Its uses are not only restricted to gamers. Discord is a platform designed for creating communities for different groups, including gamers, businesses, education groups.

Some specialties it possesses are text, image, audio, and video communication for members in a chat channel. These tools make it one of the foremost tools for gamers to share tactics, discuss games, ask questions, and give answers and make announcements.

Discord Bots

When you create a new guild on Discord, you’ll usually have only a few members at the beginning, and grows over time. A guild is a group of spaces or channels where users can gather and discuss on Discord.

As your space grows, many tasks such as welcoming new members, banning unruly members, moderating content become difficult to manage. A Discord Bot takes all those tasks off your table.

Bots act like users—howbeit automated ones—by responding to events on Discord. The typical Bot has some code in its background that programs it to act a certain way when some events occur.

For instance, you can program your Bot to welcome new members in your space. You can program a Bot to respond whenever a user says “hello”, or to respond with “ping” whenever the word “ping” is used in a message.

Any time an event happens, or a message is sent in your channel or space, your Bot gets notified by the Discord API. If those events are events it has been programmed to react to, it responds in the way you designed it to.

Discord Libraries:-

If you are new to programming, the prospect of creating a Bot and programming it to act the way you want seems daunting. You probably will want to give up the task—thinking it’s not worth the trouble—if there are no resources to help you.

Luckily, there are several packages created specifically for the Discord API. Libraries package what you need for the Discord API into a few sets of commands. These commands can then be used in creating your own Bots.

Libraries save you time and effort, and if you’re new to programming, they offer most of what you need to create your first Bot. Libraries do the hard work for you.

Discord Bots: What Happens Behind the Scenes

To understand how your Discord Bot operates, there are four important components in the process.

The first component is the Discord users. People in the channels you’ve created send messages, make comments, and engage in all kinds of activity.

The second component is the Discord server and API.

Next, we have your Bot server. Your Bot can either be run on your personal computer or on a third-party hosted server.

The final component is your Bot code. The code tells the Bot how to respond to certain activities.

When a user sends a message or conducts any other kind of activity, it is received by the Discord server. Your Bot interacts with Discord through their API. The API notifies the Bot when an event occurs, and it in turn can respond in preprogrammed ways.

How To Make a Discord Bot: Step-By-Step

Before you can even start coding in whatever language you choose there are certain things that need to be taken care of. Before you can start programming your bot to respond to events and execute exciting automation, there are four steps that should be taken:

1. Create/ log in to your account
   2. Create an application
   3. Create a bot
   4. Create a guild

We shall discuss these four steps. These four sequences of action are the framework in which your code can strive.

Step1:- Create a Discord Account

To do the exciting work of creating and programming your Bot, you need a Discord account. Having an account is the gateway to many wonderful experiences.

When you load the Discord website, the first thing you’ll see is a landing page, where you can either log in or create your account.

If you already have an account, enter your details and login. If you are creating an account, all you have to do is click on register below the login button and enter your information. An email verification is needed for you to proceed.

A developer portal homepage will load once you’re done.

Step2:- Create an Application

There are a number of programs that allow you to interact with Discord’s API. Bots are just a subsection of the many aspects of Discord’s interface. To be able to enjoy any of the aspects of Discord’s API, you need to create an application.

An application allows you to interact with different sections of Discord’s API by designating permission, providing authentication tokens, and many more important details.

The first step in creating an application is to navigate to the applications page and select “New Application“. You’ll be asked to name your application. Select a name, and then you can click on create.

Those two steps are all that are involved. On the screen you’ll be directed to, you will be able to see information about your application.

Step3:- Creating a Bot

What you’ll be creating at this point is a bot user. For any code you write to have use on Discord, you need to create a Bot user.

To do so, on the right pane of the information page displayed to you, navigate to “bot” and select “Add Bot“.

Once you’ve done that, a new Bot user bearing the name of the application will appear in the portal. You can change the name of the Bot to something you consider more fitting for a Bot.

NB: When adding bot, you will be prompted that the process is irreversible, if you are sure you want to go on with the process click ok.

Step4:- Create a Guild

A Bot needs to interact with other users. Creating a guild is the way for your Bot to interact.

As has already been explained, a guild is a specific group of channels or spaces where Discord users gather to interact. A guild is often referred to as a Server on Discord’s user interface. When you create a guild, your Bot can then be used in interacting with users.

Your discord homepage is where you create a guild. From your homepage, you can add friends, messages, or create guilds. Select the + icon on the left side and “Add a Server“.

You’ll be given two options, either to join a server or create a server. Select the option ” Create a Server”. Finally, enter the name you want to give the guild.

Step5:- Adding your Bot to a Guild

Once you’ve created both your Bot and guild, the next step is adding your Bot to the guild, so it can fulfill the uses for which it was made. A Bot accepts invites in a different way from regular users.

You’ll have to use the OAuth2 protocol to invite your Bot. To do this, you have to go back to the developer portal, and select the OAuth2 page from the options at the left.

On that window, you’ll also find your OAuth2 URL generator. This is to generate a URL that authorizes API access using your Discord credentials.

From the SCOPES options select Bots, and from BOT PERMISSIONS select Administrator, so application authorization URL can be generated.

Copy the URL that was generated for you, and paste it into your browser. Finally, select your guild from the dropdown options given and click authorize.

Is Discord easy to use?

Yes, it’s quite straightforward. You can use its desktop program or mobile app, or run it in your browser. You don’t even need to register, which is perhaps why its popularity has grown so quickly.

To use it, simply enter a username and start chatting, although if you want to make your username permanent, you need to add an email address and password, then verify your account – otherwise, you’ll lose it when you exit Discord.

The Discord servers include separate private, password- protected and public channels and users have different levels of permissions, so you shouldn’t get overwhelmed or lost. The system is just as useful for smaller groups, too.

Can I set up my own channel?