Quick start

Getting Rowboat up and running is fairly straightforward, but requires a few steps.

First, download the files and install dependencies.

Running Rowboat once using node . should create a default config.yaml file in the config folder. You can edit this manually or using command line arguments, but the default config file creates a Discord environment called MyDiscord. If you want to use Rowboat with Discord, you'll need to fill in the token and server for this environment in the config file.

Getting a Discord token

You'll only need to do this once. Head over to the Discord Developer portal and hit New Application on the top right corner to create an account for your bot.

You can set the bot's name and profile picture under General Information

Under Bot, enable all of the privileged gateway intents. Copy your token from this page and paste it in the config file. It will look like this (this is an example value):

token: "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWX.YZ0123.4567890abcdefghijklmnopqrst"

Someone else can do this step for you and give you the token, but they will control your bot's Discord account.

Getting a Discord Server ID

You must have your bot must join one or more servers, and then select one of them to be represented by the MyDiscord Environment in Rowboat. To join servers, first go back to the General Information page in the developer portal and copy the Application ID.

Then Copy the following URL to your web browser, replacing the Application ID with your new bot's:

https://discordapp.com/oauth2/authorize?&client_id=Application ID&scope=bot&permissions=8

You will be able to select the server for the bot to join from a dropdown. You can't put a bot in any server - you need to be an Administrator. If you're not an Administrator in the server you want the bot to be in, an Administrator will have to perform this step for you.

Once the bot is in the server, make sure developer mode is enabled in your discord as illustrated here, then right click the server icon and select "Copy Server ID". Paste this in your config file. It will look like this (this is an example value):

server: "01234567890123456789"

Don't forget the double quotes.