Getting Started

In this article, you'll learn about the basics of necord, and how it integrates with NestJS!

tip

Many of the concepts seen with necord are designed to be used like other components in a NestJS project.
We recommend you to be familiar with the NestJS documentation, especially its overview section, before getting started.

The very first step is to install necord and its dependency, Discord.js

npm

npm install necord discord.js

Yarn

yarn add necord discord.js

pnpm

pnpm add necord discord.js

tip

You need to install Node.js v18.0.0 or newer to use Necord and Discord.js.

Module

Necord is a module like any others, and can be imported as such within your Nest application.

NestJS modules

Not sure what modules are? Catch up by reading about them in NestJS!

discord.module.ts

import { Module } from '@nestjs/common';
import { AppService } from './app.service';
import { IntentsBitField } from 'discord.js';

@Module({
    imports: [
        NecordModule.forRoot({
            token: process.env.DISCORD_TOKEN,
            intents: [IntentsBitField.Flags.Guilds],
            development: [process.env.DISCORD_DEVELOPMENT_GUILD_ID]
        })
    ],
    providers: [AppService]
})
export class DiscordModule {}

info

Make sure to setup the correct intents required by your application!

The module arguments are an extension of discord.js ClientOptions, in addition to 3 necord options: token, prefix and development.

export interface NecordModuleOptions extends DiscordClientOptions {
    token: string;
    prefix?: string | (message: Message) => string | Promise<string>;
    development?: Snowflake[] | false;
    skipRegistration?: boolean;
}

Property	Type	Description
token	string	Your Discord token
prefix	string or (message: Message) => string	The prefix for your bot
development	Snowflake[] or false	The development guilds for your bot
skipRegistration	boolean	Skip automatic registration of application commands

Warning

If you have commands using the guilds property, the global development argument will not overwrite it.

Slash Commands

The best way to interact with your users is to use Slash commands! Slash commands allow you to create commands with precise arguments and choices, giving users the best experience.

To create a command with Necord, you can use the SlashCommand decorator.

app.service.ts

import { Injectable } from '@nestjs/common';
import { Context, SlashCommand, SlashCommandContext } from 'necord';

@Injectable()
export class AppService {
    @SlashCommand({
        name: 'ping',
        description: 'Ping command!'
    })
    public async onPing(@Context() [interaction]: SlashCommandContext) {
        return interaction.reply({ content: 'Pong!' });
    }
}

tip

When the client logs in, it will automatically register all of the commands. Global commands are cached for up to an hour, therefore to avoid the global commands cache, you should use the development argument on the Necord module. This will restrict the command to a single guild, preventing it from getting caught by the cache.

Running the application

You can run the following command at your OS command prompt to start the application listening Discord API events:

npm

$ npm run start

Yarn

$ yarn run start

pnpm

$ pnpm run start

You can view a working example here.