Configuration files

tip

💡 This page follows the official discordjs.guide .

Once you add your bot to a server , the next step is to start coding and get it online! Let's start by creating a config file for your client token and a main file for your bot application.

As explained in the "What is a token, anyway?" section, your token is essentially your bot's password, and you should protect it as best as possible. This can be done through a config.js file or by using environment variables.

Open your application in the Discord Developer Portal and go to the "Bot" page to copy your token

Using config.js

Storing data in a config.js file is a common way of keeping your sensitive values safe. Create a config.js file in your project directory and paste in your token. You can access your token inside other files by using require().

config.js

module.exports = {
    token: "", // required
    lastFmApiKey: "", // optional
    nodes: [
        {
            host: "", // required
            port: 9999, // required
            password: "", // required
            secure: false, // optional
            retryAmount: 500, // optional
            retryDelay: 300000, // optional
            resumeStatus: true, // optional
            resumeTimeout: 300, // optional
        },
    ],
};

Usage

const { token, lastFmApiKey, nodes } = require('./config.json');

---

Using dotenv

Another common approach is storing these values in a .env file. This spares you from always copying your token into the command line. Each line in a .env file should hold a KEY=value pair.

You can use the dotenv package for this. Once installed, require and use the package to load your .env file and attach the variables to process.env:

npm

npm install dotenv

yarn

yarn add dotenv

pnpm

pnpm add dotenv

bun

# dotenv is not necessary with Bun # Bun reads .env files automatically

warning

⚠️ DOTENV DOES NOT NATIVELY SUPPORT ARRAYS, BUT YOU CAN STORE ARRAYS SUITABLE FOR NODES BY SERIALIZING THEM INTO A STRING (e.g., JSON).

.env

TOKEN=""
LASTFM_API_KEY=""
LAVALINK_NODES=[{"host":"","port":9999,"password":"","secure":false,"retryAmount":500,"retryDelay":300000,"resumeStatus":true,"resumeTimeout":300}]

Usage

require("dotenv").config();

const { TOKEN, LASTFM_API_KEY, LAVALINK_NODES } = process.env;

// Parse LAVALINK_NODES JSON string
const nodes = JSON.parse(LAVALINK_NODES || "[]");

Resulting code

If you want to compare your code to the final result after completing all the steps in this guide, you can review it on the GitHub repository here .