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Discord Bot Deployment

Deploy your Discord bot from local development to production. This guide covers code upload, dependency installation, secret management, and CI/CD automation.

Prerequisites

Section titled “Prerequisites”

Before deploying, ensure you have:

  • Discord bot application with a valid token from Discord Developer Portal
  • Source code for Node.js (Discord.js, Eris, etc.) or Python (discord.py, Nextcord, etc.)
  • package.json or requirements.txt for dependency installation
  • Optional: Git repository with automated tests

Provision Your Container

Section titled “Provision Your Container”

  1. Sign in to panel.mambahost.com

  2. Click Create Server → Discord Bot Hosting

  3. Choose your plan (Starter/Pro/Premium) and region

  4. Confirm the runtime (node 20+ or Python 3.11+) under Startup

  5. Adjust start command if your entry file differs (e.g., node dist/index.js)

  6. Enable backups in Settings → Backups

Upload Your Code

Section titled “Upload Your Code”
Section titled “Option 1: SFTP (Recommended)”

  1. Get SFTP credentials from your panel

  2. Connect using an SFTP client (FileZilla, WinSCP, etc.) on port 2022

  3. Upload your repository to /home/container

  4. Exclude build artifacts (node_modules, .venv, etc.)

Option 2: Web File Manager

Section titled “Option 2: Web File Manager”
  • Drag-and-drop single files
  • Upload a ZIP and extract in the panel
  • Best for small updates

Option 3: Git + CI/CD

Section titled “Option 3: Git + CI/CD”
  • Build and test in GitHub Actions
  • Sync artifacts via SFTP or panel API
  • See CI/CD section below

Install Dependencies

Section titled “Install Dependencies”

Node.js

Section titled “Node.js”
Terminal window
npm install
# or
pnpm install

Use lockfiles (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml) for reproducible builds.

Python

Section titled “Python”
Terminal window
pip install -r requirements.txt
# or for Poetry
pip install .

Native Packages

Section titled “Native Packages”

Music bots often need FFmpeg and libsodium. Request these through support if not already installed.

Environment Variables & Secrets

Section titled “Environment Variables & Secrets”

  1. Navigate to Startup → Variables

  2. Add your secrets:

    • DISCORD_TOKEN
    • APPLICATION_ID
    • API keys (OpenAI, Stripe, etc.)
    • Database credentials
    • Webhook URLs

  3. Mark sensitive values as hidden to prevent logging

  4. Access in code:

    Node.js
    const token = process.env.DISCORD_TOKEN;
    # Python
    import os
    token = os.getenv("DISCORD_TOKEN")

Start and Validate

Section titled “Start and Validate”

  1. Click Start — the watchdog restarts automatically on crashes

  2. Watch the console for gateway login confirmation

  3. Test slash commands in your Discord server

  4. Configure scheduled restarts (daily/weekly) for stability

  5. Subscribe to incidents at status.mambahost.com

CI/CD Automation

Section titled “CI/CD Automation”

GitHub Actions Example

Section titled “GitHub Actions Example”
name: Deploy Bot
on:
  push:
    branches: [main]


jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: 20
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npm test
      - name: Upload via SFTP
        uses: wlixcc/SFTP-Deploy-Action@v1.2
        with:
          server: ${{ secrets.SFTP_HOST }}
          username: ${{ secrets.SFTP_USER }}
          password: ${{ secrets.SFTP_PASS }}
          port: 2022
          local-path: "./"
          remote-path: "/home/container"
          exclude: "node_modules,.git"
      - name: Restart bot
        run: |
          curl -X POST "https://panel.mambahost.com/api/client/servers/${{ secrets.SERVER_ID }}/power" \
               -H "Authorization: Bearer ${{ secrets.PANEL_API_KEY }}" \
               -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
               -d '{"signal":"restart"}'

Zero-Downtime Deployment

Section titled “Zero-Downtime Deployment”

  1. Keep a staging container synced with production

  2. Deploy to staging first and run smoke tests

  3. Register slash commands against the staging bot

  4. Promote to production by switching tokens/env vars

Rollback Plan

Section titled “Rollback Plan”
  • Store the last good build in /backups or object storage
  • Use panel backups to revert files and env vars
  • Restore database dumps before re-running migrations

Scaling & Sharding

Section titled “Scaling & Sharding”

Discord.js Sharding

Section titled “Discord.js Sharding”
const { ShardingManager } = require('discord.js');
const manager = new ShardingManager('./bot.js', {
  totalShards: 'auto',
  token: process.env.DISCORD_TOKEN
});
manager.spawn();

Python Auto-Sharding

Section titled “Python Auto-Sharding”
  • Disnake: AutoShardedBot
  • Hikari: Built-in sharding support

Horizontal Scaling

Section titled “Horizontal Scaling”
  • Run multiple containers, each handling a portion of shards
  • Coordinate via Redis or REST for shared state
  • Allocate additional CPU (Premium) for voice-heavy bots

Backups & Recovery

Section titled “Backups & Recovery”

  1. Enable daily backups for the container filesystem

  2. Verify restore points weekly

  3. Schedule database exports (mysqldump or SQLite copies) to /backups

  4. Document recovery steps — token rotation, slash-command re-registration

Section titled “Helpful Links”
Discord Bot Overview Platform features and architecture
Operations & Scaling Monitoring, sharding, and cost management
Troubleshooting Fix common errors and crash loops
Panel Guide Learn panel features

Need Help?

Section titled “Need Help?”