Ferrisbot for Discord

A Discord bot for the Rust programming language community Discord server, nicknamed "Ferris".

Inviting the bot

Some permissions are required:

• Send Messages: base command functionality
• Manage Roles: for ?rustify command
• Manage Messages: for ?cleanup command
• Add Reactions: for ?rustify command feedback

Furthermore, the applications.commands OAuth2 scope is required for slash commands.

Here's an invite link to an instance hosted by @kangalioo on my Raspberry Pi, with the permissions and scopes incorporated:

invite the bot

Adjust the client_id in the URL for your own hosted instances of the bot.

Configuration

The application loads configuration from two TOML files plus environment variables (all env vars are prefixed with FERRIS_).

• config/ferris.toml (optional): general settings.
• config/ferris.secrets.toml (required): copy from config/ferris.secrets.template.toml and fill in the required secrets.

Database setup (sqlx)

We use sqlx with SQLite. Point DATABASE_URL at the database file you want to use (default: sqlite://database/ferris.sqlite3). Run the following after changing schemas or when setting up a fresh checkout:

1. Initialize the database: cargo sqlx database setup
2. Apply migrations: cargo sqlx database migrate
3. Generate offline metadata: cargo sqlx prepare

If you need to skip the database entirely, set database.disabled = true in ferris.toml (or override with FERRIS_DATABASE_DISABLED=true).

Running locally (without containers)

1. Ensure config/ferris.secrets.toml is populated and DATABASE_URL points at your SQLite file.
2. Run the sqlx commands above to get the schema and offline metadata ready.
3. Start the bot: cargo run (or use the VS Code task "cargo run").

Running with containers

The repository ships with a Containerfile and compose.yaml for containerized runs. The commands below use Docker Compose, but Podman Compose should also work (and is preferred).

1. Ensure config/ferris.secrets.toml is populated and DATABASE_URL points at your SQLite file.
2. Make sure your SQLite file exists at database/ferris.sqlite3. The compose file binds this, the config/, and the logs/ directories into the container.
3. Build and run: docker compose up --build ferris

To run migrations inside the container instead of locally, you can use docker compose run --rm ferris cargo sqlx database migrate (or ... database setup / ... prepare).

If you need to access the container directly, you can use docker compose run --rm --entrypoint /bin/sh ferris.

Credits

This codebase has its roots in rust-lang/discord-mods-bot, the Discord bot running on the official Rust server.