discord-notify-bot

A super hacky Discord.js bot that will watch a set of channels on a Discord server and notify users if their search terms appear in message contents or embeds.

Features

• accepts per-user commands in the form of Direct Messages
• stores a per-user list of words to watch for in a linked MongoDB instance
• watches for embeds in a preset list of channels and notifies users when their matches appear

NOTE: The bot currently ignores messages without any embeds.

Prerequisites

• Git
• Docker (preferrably 1.10+ or CE)
• A Discord Server
• Admin privilege on the Discord server (can be temporary)

Clone the Source

git clone https://github.com/bodom0015/discord-notify-bot
cd discord-notify-bot/

Configuration

Open up config.js and make sure to set all of the appropriate fields:

• BOT_USER_ID
• ADMIN_USER_ID
• ADMIN_USER_NAME
• DEFAULT_CHANNEL_ID
• WATCHED_CHANNELS
• BOT_TOKEN

This will involve setting up a Bot User and adding it to the server.

For more details on the restrictions placed on Bot Users, see https://twentysix26.github.io/Red-Docs/red_guide_bot_accounts/

The Easy Part: Generating a new bot token

Visit https://discordapp.com/developers/applications/me to generate a new application token.

Click on "New App", fill in a name/description, choose an icon, and Submit the form.

You should then be able to view the "App" you've just created.

The Weird Part: Converting Your App to a Bot User

scroll down to turn it into a Bot account. (WARNING: this is irreversible - make sure you make a new app here to avoid accidentally breaking something you need!)

Once you've turned the App into a Bot Account, you should have a section titled "Bot" and a Token field which you cvan "Click to Reveal".

Copy this token into the BOT_TOKEN field of your config.js file.

For more information and a better walkthrough, see https://twentysix26.github.io/Red-Docs/red_guide_bot_accounts/

The Admin Part: Add your Bot to the Discord Server

You will need the "Manage Server" permission on the target server to complete this next part.

Now that you have your Bot User all set up, you should have it's Client ID, Client Secret, and Token.

Plug your bot's Client ID (at the top of the details page) into the following URL and navigate to it in your browser: https://discordapp.com/oauth2/authorize?client_id=CLIENTID&scope=bot

This should bring you to a dialogue allowing you to add the bot to a server.

For more information and a better walkthrough, see https://github.com/jagrosh/MusicBot/wiki/Adding-Your-Bot-To-Your-Server

The Hardest Part: Discovering User and Channel IDs

Now your bot should be able to join the Discord server, but how do you know the IDs of the channels and users?

One way to find these is from the URL in the browser Discord client - the last part of the URL is the numerical part of the "Snowflake" ID. Sadly, this does not seem to be true for Direct Messages with users.

Another way is to sniff all messages with the bot to determine its ID, the ID of the admin user, and the list of channel IDs to watch.

If all else fails, you can try using the Debugger to sniff Discord messages to get a feel for the formatting (see below: Running the Debugger)

This will likely involve a bit of trial and error, especially if your list of watched channels changes frequently (e.g. new channels added, old channels decommissioned, etc)

Build

Install docker and run the following command:

docker build -t discord-notify-bot .

Run

Run a MongoDB container to house the users' lists of watched terms:

docker run --name=dispatch-mongo -it --restart=Always -p 27017:27017 -v /path/to/some/persisted/volume:/data/db mongo:latest

NOTE: For Docker CE, the "always" may need to be lowercase.

Then, run a container from the discord-notify-bot image you just built:

docker run --name=dispatch-notify-bot --restart=Always --link dispatch-mongo:dispatch-mongo -it discord-notify-bot

NOTE: For Docker CE, the "always" may need to be lowercase.

Viewing the Logs

You can view the logs of the running container using the following command:

docker logs -f dispatch-notify-bot

Running the Debugger

Included is a debugger and a Dockerfile to build it:

docker build -t discord-debugger -f Dockerfile.debug .
docker run -it --name=discord-debugger --link=dispatch-mongo discord-debugger
docker logs -f discord-debugger

The debugger is just a slimmed down version of the bot that will echo Discord messages and embeds to the console. This can be useful when determining user and channel IDs to populate the rest of your config.js file.

Basic Usage

The @dispatch-notify-bot#3168 can be used to customize the notifications that you receive from the various #dispatch channels. This bot will accept commands through private messages specifying your watch list. Similarly, when a notification comes up matching a word on your watch list, the notification from #dispatch will be forwarded to you as a private message.

Desktop: Right-click on @dispatch-notify-bot#3168 and choose Message to send the bot a private message.

Mobile: Click here: @dispatch-notify-bot#3168 to send the bot a private message.

You can get basic instructions for using the bot by sending it a Private Message saying help.

Things to note:

1. This chat bot is only reading the notifications that come through the various #dispatch channels from the other bots.. if cupogomap.com is down, this bot will have no notification to forward to you
2. Girafarig comes through blank.. I have no idea why this happens. Check #uncommon for location if/when it does.
3. If your watch list is empty, the bot will not send you any notifications
4. Your watch list is cumulative - for example, if you add dratini -rantoul it won't tell you about anything in Rantoul, even if it is a Dratini
5. Your watch list is not case-sensitive: add Unown is the same as add UNOWN or add unown
6. VERY IMPORTANT: Don't tell the bot to ignore common words unless you know what you are doing. For example, add -until would ignore everything containing the word "until", which appears in every single notification that comes through #dispatch. Be very careful with the words that you choose to ignore in this way.

Example commands that could be sent to the bot as a private message:

• help will reply with a nicely-formatted message containing basic instructions on how to use the bot
• list will reply with your current watch list.. if this list is empty, you will not receive any notifications from the bot
• add unown would notify you directly if it sees an :unown:
• add campus would notify you directly if it sees any notifications with "Campus" in the text
• rm campus unown will remove terms that you have previously added to your watch list
• clear will remove ALL words from your watch list

Advanced Features

• add -dratini -urbana will tell the bot that you don't want to receive any notifications containing the words "Dratini" or "Urbana"
• add lake+of+the+woods will tell the bot to notify you if it sees "Lake of the Woods"
• add -dodds+park would tell the bot that you don't want to receive any notifications containing "Dodds Park"
• rm -dodds+park would undo the previous command - any notifications containing "Dodds Park" that match your filters will once again be forwarded to you

Expert (Experimental) Features

Expect a lot of trial and error with these lightly-tested features:

• Pseudo Regular Expressions: add ?wailmer+100+% (place the ? operator at the start of your search term to change the behavior of + to match any string, instead of just a space)
• GPS Box: add .40.098145,-88.252202:40.101264,-88.248747 (starting a search term the . operator will treat it as a pair of GPS coordinates, notifies you of anything in the box formed by following their latitude/longitude lines - the example is for Hessel Park, but these can be found from the URL in Google Maps after picking a point on the map)

Modifying the Bot

To make changes to the bot, simply modify bot.js and then execute the reload.sh script:

vi bot.js
./reload.sh

This will remove your existing bot (if one is running), rebuild the Docker image, and start up a container running the new code.