The Discord Connector bridges eevee.bot to Discord, enabling the platform to receive messages from Discord channels and send messages back through the Discord API. It connects to Discord using the discord.js library and communicates with the rest of the eevee ecosystem via NATS messaging. Each configured Discord bot instance runs as a separate DiscordClient within the connector.

Features

  • Connects to Discord using the discord.js library
  • Supports multiple Discord bot instances from a single connector
  • Receives messages from Discord channels and forwards them to the router via NATS
  • Sends messages from the router to Discord channels
  • Rich embed and direct message support
  • Configurable Discord Gateway Intents
  • Hot reloading of configuration files (via chokidar file watcher)
  • Automatic reconnection on connection loss
  • Uptime statistics reporting via NATS
  • Graceful shutdown on SIGINT / SIGTERM

Discord Intents

Intent strings in the config are mapped to GatewayIntentBits values:

Config stringGatewayIntentBits
GUILDSGatewayIntentBits.Guilds
GUILD_MESSAGESGatewayIntentBits.GuildMessages
GUILD_MESSAGE_REACTIONSGatewayIntentBits.GuildMessageReactions
DIRECT_MESSAGESGatewayIntentBits.DirectMessages
MESSAGE_CONTENTGatewayIntentBits.MessageContent

If no intents are specified, the defaults are GUILDS, GUILD_MESSAGES, and MESSAGE_CONTENT.

Hot Reload

Configuration is loaded from a YAML file and watched for changes using chokidar. When the file is modified, the connector automatically reloads — disconnecting and reconnecting all Discord clients with the new settings. No process restart is required.

NATS Subjects

Incoming

Subject PatternDescription
chat.message.incoming.discord.<instance>.<channel>.<user>Incoming message from a Discord channel
stats.uptimeUptime request — connector responds with its uptime

Outgoing

Subject PatternDescription
chat.message.outgoing.discord.<instance}.>Send a message to a Discord channel (requires channelId and text fields)

Control

Subject PatternDescription
control.connectors.discord.core.>General control messages for the connector
control.chatConnectors.discord.<instance>Per-instance control messages (e.g. send-message)

Architecture 

  ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                  connector-discord                   │
│                                                      │
│  ┌──────────────┐        ┌────────────────────────┐ │
│  │  main.mts    │───┐    │  discord-client.mts     │ │
│  │              │   │    │                         │ │
│  │ • Config     │   └──▶│  DiscordClient           │ │
│  │   loading    │        │  ├─ connect()            │ │
│  │ • NATS setup │        │  ├─ say(channelId, msg) │ │
│  │ • File watch │        │  ├─ dm(userId, msg)     │ │
│  │ • SIG handler│        │  ├─ sendEmbed(ch, emb)  │ │
│  └──────────────┘        │  └─ quit(msg)           │ │
│         │                └────────┬────────────────┘ │
│         │                         │                  │
└─────────┼─────────────────────────┼──────────────────┘
          │                         │
          ▼                         ▼
      ┌───────┐              ┌──────────┐
      │ NATS  │              │ Discord  │
      │       │              │ Gateway  │
      └───────┘              └──────────┘

Key components:

  • main.mts — Entry point. Loads YAML config, establishes the NATS connection, creates DiscordClient instances, subscribes to outgoing message subjects, and watches the config file for hot reloads.
  • DiscordClient (lib/discord-client.mts) — Wraps the discord.js Client. Emits message and connected events. Provides say(), dm(), sendEmbed(), and quit() methods. Handles all Discord gateway events and filters out bot messages.

Message flow:

  1. Discord user sends a message → DiscordClient emits message event → main.mts publishes to chat.message.incoming.discord.* NATS subject.
  2. Another module publishes to chat.message.outgoing.discord.<instance}.> → main.mts receives it → calls DiscordClient.say(channelId, text) → message appears in Discord.

Configuration

The Discord Connector is deployed as a botmodule with moduleName: "discord". The Discord bot token is loaded from the DISCORD_BOT_TOKEN environment variable, which the eevee.bot operator provides by injecting a Kubernetes secret specified in the envSecret field.

First, create a Kubernetes secret containing your Discord bot token:

  apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: discord-bot-token-secret
type: Opaque
data:
  DISCORD_BOT_TOKEN: <base64-encoded-bot-token>

Then reference this secret in your botmodule configuration:

  botModules:
- name: discord-connector
  spec:
    size: 1
    image: ghcr.io/eeveebot/connector-discord:latest
    pullPolicy: Always
    metrics: true
    metricsPort: 8080
    ipcConfig: my-eevee-bot
    moduleName: discord
    envSecret:
      name: discord-bot-token-secret
    moduleConfig: |
      connections:
      - name: my-discord-server
        ident:
          quitMsg: "eevee.bot shutting down"
        discord:
          token: "YOUR_BOT_TOKEN_HERE"
          intents:
            - "GUILDS"
            - "GUILD_MESSAGES"
            - "MESSAGE_CONTENT"
        postConnect: []