How to Build a Discord Bot in Python (Complete Guide)

Discord bots automate community management, add games and utilities, and connect Discord servers to external services. Here's the complete Python guide.

Create Your Bot

1. Go to discord.com/developers/applications → New Application
2. Bot section → Add Bot → Copy token
3. OAuth2 → URL Generator → Select bot + permissions → invite to server

Install discord.py

pip install discord.py

Basic Bot With Prefix Commands

import discord
from discord.ext import commands

bot = commands.Bot(command_prefix='!', intents=discord.Intents.all())

@bot.event
async def on_ready():
    print(f'Logged in as {bot.user}')

@bot.command()
async def ping(ctx):
    await ctx.send(f'Pong! {round(bot.latency * 1000)}ms')

@bot.command()
async def info(ctx, member: discord.Member = None):
    member = member or ctx.author
    embed = discord.Embed(title=f'Info: {member.name}', color=0x818cf8)
    embed.add_field(name='ID', value=member.id)
    embed.add_field(name='Joined', value=member.joined_at.strftime('%Y-%m-%d'))
    await ctx.send(embed=embed)

bot.run('YOUR_BOT_TOKEN')

Slash Commands (Modern Approach)

@bot.tree.command(name='hello', description='Says hello')
async def hello(interaction: discord.Interaction):
    await interaction.response.send_message(f'Hello {interaction.user.mention}!')

# Sync slash commands
@bot.event
async def on_ready():
    await bot.tree.sync()
    print(f'{bot.user} ready')

Event Handlers

@bot.event
async def on_member_join(member):
    channel = member.guild.system_channel
    if channel:
        await channel.send(f'Welcome {member.mention} to the server! 👋')

@bot.event  
async def on_message(message):
    if message.author.bot: return
    if 'help' in message.content.lower():
        await message.add_reaction('✅')
    await bot.process_commands(message)  # Don't forget this

Deploy to VPS (Systemd)

[Unit]
Description=Discord Bot
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
WorkingDirectory=/home/ubuntu/bot
ExecStart=/usr/bin/python3 bot.py
Restart=always
RestartSec=10

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

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