Discord - Creating Commands

Prerequisite Reading

• Development/Server/Guide/Discord - Running Environment
• Discord.js/Creating slash commands

Directory Structure

Explicit Commands

Explicit commands are the most common types of commands. These commands are one that have to be directly called for with a prefix or a slash command, such as /ping or !ping.

In Discord/commands there are folders to create general categorization for the commands that are created for discord. The current categories are:

• osu - For osu!-related commands
• tournaments - For commands that are related to running osu! tournaments
• utility - For general purpose commands such as ping

But there may be more as time goes on, and imported from MaquiaBot.
See this GitHub issue.

There is also an index.ts file that concatenates all of the commands into a list.

Inexplicit Commands

These commands are run when something unrelated to directly calling for a command is done. Such as submitting a file for an assigned task in a channel where that would be relevant They are located in Discord/commandsInexplicit and have the same categorization with the exception of threadCommands.

threadCommands are commands that contain functions that are run when a thread is created/deleted/updated.

Command Anatomy

All file names and commands should be based on camelCase.

Explicit Commands

Every command file typically has a structure like so:

Imports
...
Helper functions // If needed
...
async function run (m: Message | ChatInputCommandInteraction) {
    ...
}
...
const data = new SlashCommandBuilder()
    .setName("[COMMAND NAME]")
    .setDescription("[COMMAND DESCRIPTION]")
    ...
...
// If parameters are extracted with the extractParameter function, then this interface should also be written
interface parameters {
    ...
}

const [COMMAND NAME]: Command = {
    data,
    alternativeNames: [...],
    category: "[FOLDER]/[SUBFOLDER]/...",
    run,
}

In this case, imports would be any library/file imported such as import { Message } from "discord.js" while helper functions are any ts function that you will then use later for the run function.

The run function is meant to contain the core functionality of the command you are writing.

The extractParameter function is detailed more in Discord - Extracting Parameters, but this document is only focused on the general gist of creating a command.
If you are to use it though, then write a parameters interface to pass into it, as the function takes in a generic type.

All commands are meant to support the ability of using messages and slash commands to trigger commands to allow flexibility in use for the end-user.

Inexplicit Commands

The file structure for inexplicit commands is much more simpler, as its only concerned with messages. It will typically look like this:

Imports
...
Helper functions // If needed
...
export default async function [COMMAND NAME] (m: Message) {
    ...
}

Likewise, the core functionality would be contained within the [COMMAND NAME] function.

Thread Commands

Imports
...
Helper functions // IF needed
...
export async function [COMMAND NAME]Create (t: ThreadChannel, ...) {
    ...
}

export async function [COMMAND NAME]Delete (t: ThreadChannel. ...) {
    ...
}

Functionality needs to be written for both when the type of thread is created, and when the type of thread is deleted. This will then be used for create/delete/update thread as necessary.

Installing Commands

Explicit Commands

Installing explicit commands occurs in DiscordBot/commands/index.ts, where the file is first imported, and then pushed into the commands array.
Commands are grouped by their categories, and sorted alphabetically within the groups for easier searching.
Make sure to follow the ordering.

Like so:

...
import [COMMAND NAME] from "./**/[COMMAND NAME]";
...
commands.push([COMMAND NAME]);

Afterwards when running the discord bot, you should be able to access it via slash commands and with the command’s prefix.

Duplicate aliases

As the bot will catch any alias listed in the command’s alternativeNames property, it’s possible that different commands may end up having duplicate aliases.

To check this, simply run npm run dupeCmds in the console, and fix as necessary.

Inexplicit Commands

Inexplicit commands are dependant on each command’s use case, but typically they would be installed in DiscordBot/handlers/messageCreate.ts like so:

import [COMMAND NAME] from "../commandsInexplicit/**/[COMMAND NAME]";
...
if ([CONDITIONALS] && !commandRun)
    [COMMAND NAME](m);

If the command should be run regardless if another command is run, then you don’t need to add && !commandRun, but it is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED otherwise.

Thread Commands

Similar to explicit commands, these will be installed in DiscordBot/commands/index.ts like so:

import { [COMMAND NAME]Create, [COMMAND NAME]Delete } from "../commandsInexplicit/threadCommands/**/[COMMAND NAME]";
...
const threadCommands = {
    ...
    [ [THREAD TYPE] ]: { create: [COMMAND NAME]Create, delete: [COMMAND NAME]Delete },
} as threadCommands;