Discord College Football Bot

A Discord bot written in Go that provides up-to-date college football scores and schedules. It responds to commands to show recent or upcoming games for specific teams using the College Football Data API.

Features

• Retrieves college football scores by team, including live scores (for Patreon members)
• Provides upcoming game schedules if a game hasn’t started
• Designed to run on a Discord server, responds to commands in real-time

Commands

• !s <team_name> — Retrieves the score for the most recent game or the upcoming game schedule if the game hasn’t started.

Example:

!s Alabama

Setup

Prerequisites

• Go (1.19 or later)
• College Football Data API key: Sign up at College Football Data and obtain an API key.
• Discord Bot Token: Set up a bot on the Discord Developer Portal to obtain a token.

Installation

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/yourusername/discord-cfb-bot.git
   cd discord-cfb-bot
   

2. Configure API keys:

   • In config/config.go, set the CFBDAPIKey with your College Football Data API key and your Discord bot token.

3. Run the bot:

   • To test locally:

     go run main.go
     

   • To run in the background:
     • Use nohup, screen, tmux, or create a systemd service (see below for options).

Running the Bot in the Background

You can keep the bot running in the background by using tools like nohup, screen, or tmux. For production servers, consider creating a systemd service.

Example with nohup:

nohup go run main.go > bot.log 2>&1 &

Deployment with systemd (Linux)

1. Create a systemd service file at /etc/systemd/system/discord-cfb-bot.service:

   [Unit]
   Description=Discord College Football Bot
   After=network.target
   
   [Service]
   ExecStart=/usr/local/go/bin/go run /path/to/main.go
   WorkingDirectory=/path/to/discord-cfb-bot
   StandardOutput=append:/path/to/bot.log
   StandardError=append:/path/to/bot.log
   Restart=always
   User=yourusername
   
   [Install]
   WantedBy=multi-user.target
   

2. Enable and start the service:

   sudo systemctl enable discord-cfb-bot
   sudo systemctl start discord-cfb-bot
   

Usage

Invite the bot to your server and type commands in any text channel where the bot has permissions. For example:

!s Texas A&M

The bot will reply with the score or the upcoming game schedule for the team.

Project Structure

• main.go: Entry point of the bot
• config/config.go: Configuration file for the API keys and other settings
• clients/cfbd_client.go: Client for interacting with the College Football Data API
• bot/bot.go: Discord bot setup and command handling

Contributions

Contributions are welcome! Feel free to submit a pull request to improve the bot or add new features.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.