What Is a Bot?

Creating a Discord Bot in Python Andrew Stephen 03:23

In this lesson, you’ll learn what a Discord bot is, and the types of automated actions they can programmatically perform. These programs look and act like users, and automatically respond to events, and commands on Discord. Discord bot users (or just bots) have nearly unlimited applications.

For the next lesson, you’ll need to create a developer account using Discord’s Developer Portal. You can log in with an existing Discord user account, or you can register for a new user account from the same URL.

00:00 What exactly is a bot? Well, a bot is a shortened form of bot user, which is an automated program that looks and acts like an actual human user. They can also respond to specific commands and events, such as a new user joining a public server, or banning an inappropriate user.

00:20 As Discord is constantly growing in popularity, automating particular tasks are necessary to help communities thrive. The previous examples, however, are only scratching the surface, as to what these bot users are capable of doing.

00:34 Let’s say you start a public server, or guild, and it slowly begins to grow. At the beginning, you can reach out to every new member, say hello, encourage them to introduce themselves to the larger group, and show them the ropes of what each channel within the server is useful, what the community rules and guidelines are for the server, and even allocate a role for the user within the server.

00:56 This makes the user feel welcomed and wanted, and encourages them to contribute to the community, and perhaps even to suggest it to friends, to help it grow.

01:03 Once a community grows enough, however, doing this welcome personally, or more specifically, manually, can become arduous and even get to a point where you are just, outright, unable to do so.

01:16 This is where a bot user can come in handy and help you out. Please keep in mind that this is but one small example in how you can use a bot, and once you are more comfortable and familiar with creating them, you could create numerous bots for an almost unlimited number of automated tasks.

01:31 Please note that while Discord bots can be made to deal with voice communication, this tutorial will only cover text-based bots.

01:40 Now, when creating bots there are two key steps that must be followed. Firstly, create the bot user on Discord and register it with a guild. And secondly, write code using Discord APIs that implements your bot’s behaviors.

01:56 Let’s take a look at how you’ll begin to carry out that first step, by starting with making a Discord bot within the Discord Developer Portal, Before even thinking of writing any code for a Discord bot, there are a handful of components that you must first create.

02:10 These components are a Discord account, an application, a bot, and a guild. You will learn more about each of these components as you progress through the course.

02:21 Once each of these components have been created, you will tie them all together by registering the bot with the guild. The first thing you need to do is to navigate over to the Discord Developer Portal, the URL of which is discordapp.com/developers.

02:37 It’s also useful to note that the Discord URL for using the actual app is discordapp.com. Now, you don’t need it right now, but you will need it within a lesson or two.

02:48 When you get to the Discord Developer Portal, you will need to log in with your account, if you already have one. If not, you’ll have to create one. In order to do this, click on Register, located here, below the Login button, and enter your account information.

03:05 Keep in mind that before moving on, you will have to validate your email address. Once these initial steps are completed, you will be redirected to the Developer Portal homepage, from which you can create your application.

03:18 This step, however, will be covered in the next video.

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