Setup CommandKit manually

If you don't want to use the CLI to automatically generate a base CommandKit project, you can integrate CommandKit manually into your application.

info

While this guide primarily uses TypeScript, you can use JavaScript files without any problems to follow along if that's what you're comfortable with (e.g. commandkit.config.js, app.js, etc)

Configuration file

To get started, create a file called commandkit.config.ts at the root of your project. This file is used to configure CommandKit and optionally its plugins.

commandkit.config.ts

import { defineConfig } from 'commandkit';

export default defineConfig({});

Entrypoint file

Then, create a folder called src, followed by a file called app.ts inside it. The file should look like this:

src/app.ts

import { Client } from 'discord.js';

const client = new Client({
  intents: ['Guilds'],
});

client.token = '...'; // Optional: Manually set a bot token

export default client;

With the current entrypoint file created, it's important to understand that:

1. The app.ts file is the entrypoint for this application. This file must export your discord.js client instance.
2. You don't have to call client.login() as CommandKit will handle that for you.
3. You should store your bot token as an environment variable with either DISCORD_TOKEN or TOKEN as the name.
4. If you prefer to have a custom environment variable for your bot token, you can manually assign it to the client.token property.

Adding commands

To add a command, create a folder inside the src/app directory called commands and create your command file (e.g. ping.ts). This example will use a simple ping/pong command which will register as a chat input (slash) and message command.

src/app/commands/ping.ts

import type { ChatInputCommand, CommandData, MessageCommand } from 'commandkit';

export const command: CommandData = {
  name: 'ping',
  description: 'Pong!',
};

export const chatInput: ChatInputCommand = async ({ interaction }) => {
  await interaction.reply('Pong!');
};

export const message: MessageCommand = async ({ message }) => {
  await message.reply('Pong!');
};

This command will reply with "Pong!" when the user runs the /ping slash command, or sends !ping in the chat.

tip

The prefix for message commands can be changed globally or per-guild. Learn more here.

Adding events

To register and handle events emitted by your discord.js client, create a folder inside the src/app directory called events and create a folder with the name of the discord.js event you'd like to handle (e.g. ready, messageCreate, etc). This example will use the ready event.

In the src/app/events/ready directory, you can create files which will export default functions that will be called when the respective event is emitted by discord.js. Following the ready event example mentioned above, you may want to log when your bot comes online. The function for that will look like so:

src/app/events/log.ts

import type { Client } from 'discord.js';

export default function (client: Client<true>) {
  console.log(`Logged in as ${client.user.username}!`);
}

tip

You can find a full list of events under the discord.js Client class.

Running the app in development

To run your application in development mode, you can use the commandkit dev command in your terminal. This will allow you to quickly reload specific parts of your application using Hot Module Replacement (HMR) when you make changes to your code, without having to restart the entire application.

npm

npx commandkit dev

Yarn

yarn dlx commandkit dev

pnpm

pnpm dlx commandkit dev

Bun

bun x commandkit dev

warning

When running in development mode, CommandKit will generate a .commandkit folder in the root of your project. This folder contains the compiled files used in development mode. You should not commit this folder to your version control system by making sure you add it to your .gitignore file.

Building for production

When you are ready to deploy your bot, you can use commandkit build to create a production build of your bot. This will create a dist folder in your project directory containing the compiled files.

npx commandkit build

warning

After running your build script, CommandKit will generate a dist folder in the root of your project. This folder contains the compiled files used for production. You should not commit this folder to your version control system by making sure you add it to your .gitignore file.

Running the app in production

You can use commandkit start to start the bot in production mode. This will load the environment variables from the .env file in the root of your project directory.

npx commandkit start

Alternatively, you can manually start the bot in production mode using a runtime environment of your choice:

node dist/index.js