Discord moderation bot
Context
A fully personal project, done alone and entirely self-directed over about a month: no set topic, no supervisor, no deadline other than the one I set myself. The need was concrete: moderate a Discord server properly without having to stay connected all the time.
None of this project was on the BUT syllabus: not JavaScript, not Node.js, not consuming an external API. It all came from the official documentation and my own trial and error. That makes it the project that best shows I can learn an unfamiliar technology on my own.
Goal
Deliver a tool actually used day to day, not a demo: a bot that can handle moderation on an active server by itself. So the goal was entirely about function and reliability: there is no graphical interface, the bot’s “interface” being its commands and its messages.
A second goal, just as important to me: properly understanding how a REST API, event-driven architecture and asynchronous programming work in JavaScript, things I did not want to have merely read about.
Technical work
The bot is written in JavaScript with Node.js and the discord.js library. It is built on an event-driven architecture and slash commands. I implemented a full moderation module: ban, kick, temporary mute, warnings and role management. An auto-moderation system filters spam, unwanted links and banned words. Every action is written to a log channel, and the data (warnings, server configuration) is stored persistently.
Difficulties
The main challenges were handling asynchronous code (async/await, promises) to chain API calls without blocking the bot, respecting Discord’s rate limits, and handling permissions carefully to prevent abuse. I also had to structure the code into clean modules so it stayed maintainable as I added new commands.
What I take from it
This project taught me to consume a real REST API, to think in event-driven and asynchronous terms, and to organise a JavaScript project from start to finish. Beyond the technical side, I understood how much error handling and permissions matter in a tool used by real people. It is the project that got me interested in back-end development.
- A complete language and ecosystem, JavaScript and Node.js, learned entirely on my own, outside the syllabus.
- A practical grasp of asynchronous code (
async/await, promises) and of event-driven architecture. - The experience of a tool actually used by other people: bugs have visible consequences, which changes the way you write code.
- The habit of structuring things into modules from the start so a project stays maintainable as it grows.