@discordjs/ws

About

@discordjs/ws is a powerful wrapper around Discord's gateway.

Installation

Node.js 22.12.0 or newer is required.

npm install @discordjs/ws
yarn add @discordjs/ws
pnpm add @discordjs/ws
bun add @discordjs/ws

Optional packages

• zlib-sync for WebSocket data compression and inflation (npm install zlib-sync)
• bufferutil for a much faster WebSocket connection (npm install bufferutil)

Example usage

The example uses ES modules.

import { WebSocketManager, WebSocketShardEvents, CompressionMethod } from '@discordjs/ws';
import { REST } from '@discordjs/rest';
import type { RESTGetAPIGatewayBotResult } from 'discord-api-types/v10';

const rest = new REST().setToken(process.env.DISCORD_TOKEN);
// This example will spawn Discord's recommended shard count, all under the current process.
const manager = new WebSocketManager({
	token: process.env.DISCORD_TOKEN,
	intents: 0, // for no intents
	fetchGatewayInformation() {
		return rest.get(Routes.gatewayBot()) as Promise<RESTGetAPIGatewayBotResult>;
	},
	// uncomment if you have zlib-sync installed and want to use compression
	// compression: CompressionMethod.ZlibSync,

	// alternatively, we support compression using node's native `node:zlib` module:
	// compression: CompressionMethod.ZlibNative,
});

manager.on(WebSocketShardEvents.Dispatch, (event) => {
	// Process gateway events here.
});

await manager.connect();

Specify shards

// Spawn 4 shards
const manager = new WebSocketManager({
	token: process.env.DISCORD_TOKEN,
	intents: 0,
	shardCount: 4,
	fetchGatewayInformation() {
		return rest.get(Routes.gatewayBot()) as Promise<RESTGetAPIGatewayBotResult>;
	},
});

// The manager also supports being responsible for only a subset of your shards:

// Your bot will run 8 shards overall
// This manager will only take care of 0, 2, 4, and 6
const manager = new WebSocketManager({
	token: process.env.DISCORD_TOKEN,
	intents: 0,
	shardCount: 8,
	shardIds: [0, 2, 4, 6],
	fetchGatewayInformation() {
		return rest.get(Routes.gatewayBot()) as Promise<RESTGetAPIGatewayBotResult>;
	},
});

// Alternatively, if your shards are consecutive, you can pass in a range
const manager = new WebSocketManager({
	token: process.env.DISCORD_TOKEN,
	intents: 0,
	shardCount: 8,
	shardIds: {
		start: 0,
		end: 4,
	},
	fetchGatewayInformation() {
		return rest.get(Routes.gatewayBot()) as Promise<RESTGetAPIGatewayBotResult>;
	},
});

Specify worker_threads

You can also have the shards spawn in worker threads:

import { WebSocketManager, WorkerShardingStrategy } from '@discordjs/ws';
import { REST } from '@discordjs/rest';

const rest = new REST().setToken(process.env.DISCORD_TOKEN);
const manager = new WebSocketManager({
	token: process.env.DISCORD_TOKEN,
	intents: 0,
	shardCount: 6,
	fetchGatewayInformation() {
		return rest.get(Routes.gatewayBot()) as Promise<RESTGetAPIGatewayBotResult>;
	},
	// This will cause 3 workers to spawn, 2 shards per each
	buildStrategy: (manager) => new WorkerShardingStrategy(manager, { shardsPerWorker: 2 }),
	// Or maybe you want all your shards under a single worker
	buildStrategy: (manager) => new WorkerShardingStrategy(manager, { shardsPerWorker: 'all' }),
});

Note: By default, this will cause the workers to effectively only be responsible for the WebSocket connection, they simply pass up all the events back to the main process for the manager to emit. If you want to have the workers handle events as well, you can pass in a workerPath option to the WorkerShardingStrategy constructor:

import { WebSocketManager, WorkerShardingStrategy } from '@discordjs/ws';
import { REST } from '@discordjs/rest';

const rest = new REST().setToken(process.env.DISCORD_TOKEN);
const manager = new WebSocketManager({
	token: process.env.DISCORD_TOKEN,
	intents: 0,
	fetchGatewayInformation() {
		return rest.get(Routes.gatewayBot()) as Promise<RESTGetAPIGatewayBotResult>;
	},
	buildStrategy: (manager) =>
		new WorkerShardingStrategy(manager, {
			shardsPerWorker: 2,
			workerPath: './worker.js',
			// Optionally, if you have custom messaging, like for analytic collection, you can use this:
			async unknownPayloadHandler(data: any) {
				// handle data here :3
			},
		}),
});

And your worker.ts file:

import { WorkerBootstrapper, WebSocketShardEvents } from '@discordjs/ws';
import { parentPort } from 'node:worker_threads';

const bootstrapper = new WorkerBootstrapper();
void bootstrapper.bootstrap({
	// Those will be sent to the main thread for the manager to emit
	forwardEvents: [
		WebSocketShardEvents.Closed,
		WebSocketShardEvents.Debug,
		WebSocketShardEvents.Hello,
		WebSocketShardEvents.Ready,
		WebSocketShardEvents.Resumed,
	],
	shardCallback: (shard) => {
		shard.on(WebSocketShardEvents.Dispatch, (event) => {
			// Process gateway events here however you want (e.g. send them through a message broker)
			// You also have access to shard.id if you need it
		});
	},
});

// This will go to `unknownPayloadHandler` in the main thread, or be ignored if not provided
parentPort!.postMessage({ custom: 'data' });

Links

• Website (source)
• Documentation
• Guide (source) Also see the v13 to v14 Update Guide, which includes updated and removed items from the library.
• discord.js Discord server
• Discord Developers Discord server
• GitHub
• npm
• Related libraries

Contributing

Before creating an issue, please ensure that it hasn't already been reported/suggested, and double-check the documentation.
See the contribution guide if you'd like to submit a PR.

Help

If you don't understand something in the documentation, you are experiencing problems, or you just need a gentle nudge in the right direction, please don't hesitate to join our official discord.js Server.