tda-api Helper Bot

A bot that listens on tda-api server traffic and chimes in whenever it feels a user is asking a frequently-asked question.

How does it work?

It listens on incoming messages and matches them against a configured list of trigger prompts. When one of those prompts triggers, it responds to the message with a (hopefully) helpful link to the appropriate FAQ page. It avoids showing the same message to users over and over again by maintaining a database of the messages each user has triggered.

How do I deploy it?

This bot is packaged as a docker container. I use an M1 MacBook, the Dockerfile builds an image using the arm64v8 version of Alpine Linux. This also happens to be suitable for deployment to a Raspberry Pi 4B.

To deploy, first build the docker container:

.. code-block:: bash cd /tda-api/repo/path/discord_help_bot docker build .

Create the volume on which you'll store the state DB:

.. code-block:: bash docker volume create discord_bot_state

Find the ID of the created image here:

docker images

Initialize the state:

.. code-block:: bash docker run -t -v discord_bot_state:/sqlite <IMAGE_ID> init --sqlite_db_file /sqlite/state.sqlite_db

Start the bot:

.. code-block:: bash docker run -t -v discord_bot_state:/sqlite <IMAGE_ID> run --token <DISCORD_TOKEN> --sqlite_db_file /sqlite/state.sqlite_db