Running your bot

Note

You can invite your bot, change your token, and manage intents at the Discord developer portal.

Make sure you have acquired your token, and changed it in Bot.swift or wherever you store your token securely.

Instructions are available per platform.

macOS

With Xcode (recommended)

Ensure the scheme is set to your bot, and press the run button. It will build for debugging unless you change the scheme settings.

With a terminal

Open a terminal, cd to your bot project directory, and paste the following command.

swift run

Linux and Windows

Open a terminal, cd to your bot project directory, and paste the following command.

swift run

Special

If you have no other choice, you can run your bot on an iDevice. It’s not recommended, but it’s possible. DDBKit does not regularly test on iDevices, so you may run into issues. If you do, please report them in a GitHub issue.

Non-Jailbroken

DiscordBotShell

You will need to migrate your codebase to work on iOS, and make a new project forked from the template shell app. You can find the shell app at DiscordBotShell.

Begin by navigating to the repository, then click on Use this template. Give your repository a name, and clone it to your local machine.

Your project structure should look like this:

• DiscordBotShell.xcodeproj
• DirectoryDiscordBotShell

  • DirectoryShell

    • …
  • DirectoryBot

    • BotMain.swift
  • DiscordBotShell.entitlements
  • Info.plist
• DirectoryDiscordBotShellTests

  • DiscordBotShellTests.swift

Next, copy your bot code from your Sources folder to the Bot folder.

You can remove BotMain.swift if your bot’s entrypoint is in a different file.

Tip

If your bot has any SPM dependencies, add them to the app now. Do this by right-clicking in the empty space of the file navigator, then selecting Add package dependencies.

Go to your bot’s entrypoint struct, remove the @main attribute. DiscordBotShell will handle the entrypoint. Rename the struct to MyDiscordBot, since that’s what the shell app is looking for at launch.

Finally, build and run your bot on your iDevice.

Note

Your build may fail if you rely on macOS frameworks. You will need to switch to the iOS alternatives.

Jailbroken

Installing Swift

Open your preferred package manager, and install Swift. You should know how to do this if you’re jailbroken.

Running your bot

Open a terminal, cd to your bot project directory, clone if necessary, and then run as you would on other platforms.

swift run

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Deployment

Danger

Remember to keep your token secure. Do not share it with anyone. If you do, you can regenerate it at the Discord developer portal. Do not commit your token to a public repository accidentally. Avoid storing your token in your codebase, perhaps pass it in as an environment variable.

Binary (for macOS)

We recommend this if you’re hosting on a macOS server, and your bot relies on macOS frameworks.

Begin by building your bot for release with the following command:

swift build -c release

The final binary will be located in a folder in the .build/ folder. The destination folder will be named after your host architecture.

You can then copy the binary and required resources to your server, and run it with any required arguments or environment variables.

To ensure the bot launches on boot, you can use a launchd plist. You can find more information on launchd plists at Apple’s developer documentation.

Docker (recommended)

We recommend this if you’re hosting on a Linux server, or if you’re hosting on a macOS server but don’t deal with macOS frameworks.

First, make sure you have docker and docker-compose installed. You can install them using your distro’s package manager, or by using the official Docker installation script, located here.

Start by making a Dockerfile in your bot project directory. It might look something like this:

FROM swift:6.0.2-jammy AS build

WORKDIR /app

COPY . .

RUN swift build -c release

FROM swift:6.0.2-jammy-slim AS runtime

COPY --from=build /app/.build/release/your-app /usr/local/bin/your-app

ENTRYPOINT ["your-app"]

This example Dockerfile builds your bot using a full swift image, and runs it on a smaller, more optimized image.

You can then run the newly-created docker image with docker run, however it is highly recommended to use docker-compose. A minimal docker-compose.yml may look like this:

services:
  your-app:
    build: .

Start the docker image by running docker compose up -d in the same directory as the compose file.

If you need to specify environment variables or other options, you can find a more in-depth example here.

Special

If you’re hosting on an iDevice, you can use the same instructions as running on an iDevice. There is no better way to deploy on an iDevice, as it’s not recommended. You can be assured that it’s at least safe and sandboxed unless you used the jailbroken method. But it’s not recommended for production use anyways. Maybe just useful for flexing on your friends idk.