Discord Confessions Bot

This bot lets members post confessions under an alias while still allowing admins to see who submitted each one.

Features

• Anonymous confession posts shown under a user-provided alias
• Admin-only audit trail that records the real author
• Admin audit logging for anonymous thread replies too
• One-click thread replies for each confession
• Reply messages inside the thread include a fresh reply button so members can quickly post follow-ups
• Optional role ping on every new confession
• Optional per-member reply limit per confession (MAX_REPLIES_PER_MEMBER_PER_CONFESSION)
• Per-server configuration with slash commands
• Built-in web dashboard for config management and confession history

Commands

• /confess opens a modal so someone can submit:
  • an alias
  • their confession
• /confessions-config updates:
  • the confession channel
  • the admin audit channel
  • the role to ping for each confession
  • clear toggles so any of those settings can be removed later
• /confessions-status shows the current setup for the server

Setup

1. Create a Discord application and bot in the Discord developer portal.
2. Enable these bot permissions:
   • Send Messages
   • Embed Links
   • Use Slash Commands
   • Create Public Threads
   • Send Messages in Threads
   • Manage Threads (recommended)
3. Copy .env.example to .env and fill in:
   • DISCORD_TOKEN
   • CLIENT_ID
   • optionally GUILD_ID for instant dev command registration
   • DASHBOARD_PASSWORD for the web dashboard login
   • optionally DATA_DIR if you want storage outside the project folder
   • optionally DASHBOARD_PORT
   • optionally MAX_REPLIES_PER_MEMBER_PER_CONFESSION (0 or unset means unlimited replies per member)
4. Install packages:

npm install

5. Start the bot:

npm start

6. Open the dashboard at http://localhost:3000 unless you changed DASHBOARD_PORT.

Railway Deploy

Railway is a good fit for this project because it can run the Discord bot and the dashboard in one Node service.

1. Push this repo to GitHub.
2. In Railway, create a new project from the GitHub repo.
3. Add a Volume and mount it at /app/data.
4. In Railway variables, set:
   • DISCORD_TOKEN
   • CLIENT_ID
   • DASHBOARD_PASSWORD
   • DATA_DIR=/app/data
   • optionally GUILD_ID
   • optionally DEFAULT_CONFESSION_CHANNEL_ID
   • optionally DEFAULT_AUDIT_CHANNEL_ID
   • optionally DEFAULT_PING_ROLE_ID
5. Deploy. Railway will provide the PORT variable automatically, and the dashboard will use it.

Your confession data will then persist in the mounted Railway volume instead of disappearing on redeploy.

Testing

Use this order so you can tell exactly what is working:

1. Run npm run check
   • This confirms the main source files parse correctly.
2. Run npm start
   • You should see logs that the bot logged in and slash commands registered.
   • If DASHBOARD_PASSWORD is set, you should also see the dashboard port message.
3. Open the dashboard
   • Visit http://localhost:3000 locally, or your Railway service URL after deploy.
   • Log in with DASHBOARD_PASSWORD.
4. In Discord, run /confessions-config
   • Set the confession channel
   • Set the audit channel
   • Optionally set the ping role
5. In Discord, run /confessions-status
   • Confirm the IDs and channel mentions look correct.
6. Submit a confession with /confess
   • Confirm the public confession appears in the confession channel
   • Confirm the alias appears publicly
   • Confirm the configured role gets pinged if enabled
   • Confirm the real author appears only in the audit channel
7. Click Reply in thread
   • Submit an anonymous reply
   • Confirm a thread is created
   • Confirm the reply appears in the thread under the reply alias
   • Confirm the audit channel logs the real author of the reply
8. Refresh the dashboard
   • Confirm the confession appears in history
   • Confirm the author ID and links are visible there
9. Restart the app
   • Confirm the saved config and confession history are still present
   • On Railway, this verifies your volume is mounted correctly

If slash commands do not appear right away, set GUILD_ID for your test server and restart the app. Guild commands update much faster than global commands.

One-Click Preview

If you just want to see the interface without installing anything yet, double-click launch-preview.bat. It opens the static mockup at preview/dashboard-preview.html in your browser.

Inviting the Bot

Use the OAuth URL generator in the Discord developer portal and include the bot and applications.commands scopes.

Notes

• The bot stores server config and confession metadata in data/store.json.
• The audit channel should be visible only to trusted moderators/admins.
• The dashboard shows author IDs and confession contents, so protect it with a strong password and keep it private.
• If a confession already has a reply thread, the reply button posts into the existing thread instead of creating a new one.
• Discord may show buttons on the thread starter message as disabled inside the thread view; the bot posts an active reply button message in the thread for follow-up replies.