Getting started¶
If you recently installed Red, you should read this. This is a quick start guide for a general usage.
Note
If you haven’t installed Red, please do it by following the installation guides.
Assuming you correctly installed Red, you should have a window like this:
Invite Red to your server¶
When started, the console will show you Invite URL
(here at
the bottom of the screenshot).
Paste the link into your browser and select the server you want
to invite the bot in, like any other bot.
Note
You need the Manage server
permission to add bots.
Complete the captcha, it should tell you Authorized!
and you
should see your bot in the members list.
Attention
If Discord shows Bot requires code grant
, please untick this
option in your token settings
Interact with Red¶
As a chatbot, you interact with Red via the Discord text channels
(not from the command prompt). To send commands to the bot, you will have to
use the prefix you set before, followed by the command you want to use. For
example, if your prefix is !
, you will execute your command like this:
!ping
.
Note
Since the prefix can be anything, it’ll be referenced as [p]
in documentations.
The commands¶
The command you’re going to use the most is help. That command will show you all of the available commands of the bot with a small description.
[p]help
Tip
The message is generated dynamically and users will only see the commands they can use. You can change what commands users can use with the permissions cog.
You can also pick a command to get its detailed description and the parameters.
[p]help command
The parameters are shown as enclosed in < >
if they’re required, or
[ ]
if optional.
As an example, the ban command will show this in the help message, assuming
your prefix is !
:
Syntax: !ban <user> [days] [reason]
This means that it is necessary to provide user
. However, the
days
value (number of messages to delete) is optional, as well as
the reason
value, used for the modlog.
You can use help to show the categories too, generally called cogs. Just do something like this (notice the capitalization):
[p]help YourCategory
Help also shows command groups. They are group of commands. To get the description of a subcommand, type this:
[p]help commandgroup subcommand
When using subcommands, you also need to specify the command group.
As an example, cleanup
has 6 subcommands. If you want
to use one, do it like this: [p]cleanup messages 10
Cogs¶
Red is built with cogs, a fancy term for plugins. They are modules that add functionality to Red. They contain commands to use.
Red comes with 19 cogs containing the basic features, such as moderation, utility, music, streams…
You can see your loaded and unloaded cogs with the [p]cogs
command. By default, all cogs will be unloaded.
You can load or unload a cog by using the load or unload command
[p]load cogname
[p]unload cogname
Tip
You can load and unload multiple cogs at once:
[p]load cog1 cog2 ...
You can enable and disable everything you want, which means you can customize Red how you want!
Community cogs¶
There’s an entire community that contributes to Red. Those contributors make additional cogs for you to use. You can download them using the downloader cog.
You can start using the downloader cog by loading it: [p]load downloader
You can find cogs by searching on cogs.red
. Find whatever you want,
there are hundreds of cogs available!
Note
cogs.red
, the website that list all of the cogs is not
ready for v3 yet. For now, you can refer to this post.
Cogs come in repositories. A repository is a container of cogs
that you can install. Let’s suppose you want to install the say
cog from the repository Laggrons-Dumb-Cogs
. You’ll first need
to add the repository.
[p]repo add Laggrons-Dumb-Cogs https://github.com/retke/Laggrons-Dumb-Cogs
Note
You may need to specify a branch. If so, add its name after the link.
Then you can install the cog
[p]cog install Laggrons-Dumb-Cogs say
Now the cog is installed, but not loaded. You can load it using the [p]load
command we talked about before.
Permissions¶
Red works with different levels of permissions. Every cog defines the level of permission needed for a command.
Bot owner¶
The bot owner can access all commands on every guild. They can also use exclusive commands that can interact with the global settings or system files.
You are the owner by default.
Server owner¶
The server owner can access all commands on his guild, except the global ones or those who can interact with system files (available for the bot owner).
Administrator¶
The administrator is defined by its roles. You can set multiple admin roles
with the [p]set addadminrole
and [p]set removeadminrole
commands.
For example, in the mod cog, an admin can use the [p]modset
command
which defines the cog settings.
Moderator¶
A moderator is a step above the average users. You can set multiple moderator
roles with the [p]set addmodrole
and [p]set removemodrole
commands.
For example, in the mod cog (again), a mod will be able to mute, kick and ban;
but he won’t be able to modify the cog settings with the [p]modset
command.
Tip
If you don’t like the default permission settings for some commands or if want to restrict a cog or a command to a channel/member, you can use the permissions cog.
Hosting¶
If you are hosting Red on your personal computer, you will soon notice that if you close the window or if you shut down you computer, Red will be offline. She needs an environment to work and respond.
You can try to host Red somewhere she will always be online, like on a virtual private server (VPS) or on a personal server (e.g. Raspberry Pi).
If you want to do it, follow these steps.
Warning
Before trying to host Red on a Linux environment, you need to know the basics of the Unix commands, such as navigating the system files or use a terminal text editor.
You should follow this guide from DigitalOcean which will introduce you to the Linux basics.
- Find a host
You need to find a server to host Red. You can rent a VPS (it can be free) on an online service. Please check this list for quality VPS providers.
You can also buy a Raspberry Pi (~$20), which is a micro-computer that will be able to host Red. The model 3 or above is recommended.
- Install Linux
Most of the VPS providers have tools for installing Linux automatically. If you’re a beginner, we recommend Ubuntu 20.04 LTS.
For Raspberry Pi users, just install Raspbian on a micro-SD card.
2.1. Log in
Note
This section is for those who have an online server. If you have a local Linux machine, just open the terminal and skip to the next part.
As we said before, a VPS is controlled through command line. You will have to connect to your VPS through a protocol called SSH.
On your host page (here, it is Google Cloud), find the SSH button and click on it. You will be connected to your server with command line. You should see something like this.
Note
Don’t forget to type the command
logout
to close the SSH properly.
- Install and set up Red
Just follow one of the Linux installation guide. We provide guides for the most used distributions. Check the home page and search for your distribution.
- Set up an auto-restart
Once you got Red running on your server, it will still shut down if you close the window. You can set up an auto-restarting system that will create a side task and handle fatal errors, so you can just leave your server running and enjoy Red!
For that, just follow this guide.
User documentation¶
You will soon start using the Red core cogs. A detailed documentation is available for every core cog, under the How to use section.
The cog guides are formatted the same. They’re divided into 3 sections:
Guide
This will introduce you to the cog and explain you how it works.
Commands
A list of the available commands, with details and arguments. Each command guide will be formatted like this:
Syntax
A line that will show how the command must be invoked, with the arguments.
Tip
If the command show something like
[lavalinkset|llset]
, that means you can invoke the command withlavalinkset
or withllset
, this is called an alias.Description
A detailed description of what the command does, with details about how it must be used.
Arguments
A list of all arguments needed (or not) for the command, with more details.
Tip
Arguments enclosed in
< >
means that the argument is required for the command to work.Arguments enclosed in
[ ]
means that the argument is optional for the command; you can decide to use it or not.If your argument includes spaces like
Hello world!
, most of the time you will need to place it in double quotes like this:"Hello world!"
. Sometimes (especially for the last argument) these double quotes are not required.Arguments followed by
=something
means that, if not specified, the argument will be equal tosomething
.For example,
[days=1]
in theban
command means that the number of days of messages to be deleted will be equal to1
if not specified.