Bot / 2026 / Live
SwansonX Bot
A Discord bot running live in a real community. 16 commands and 12 features, talking to a game server over a single outbound WebSocket, covered by 194 tests.
The architecture decision
The game server dials out to the bot. The bot listens and never initiates. One WebSocket connection, authenticated on the upgrade, carrying a small typed envelope in both directions.
The alternative is a game server that accepts inbound connections, which means a port to open, an attack surface to defend and a firewall rule to get wrong. Making the connection outbound removes all three at once, and it means a restart on either side heals itself instead of needing intervention.
What it does
16 commands and 12 features spanning both sides: in-game events surface in Discord, and Discord actions reach into the game. It runs in a real community with real players, which is a different quality bar from a bot in a test server.
Tested, because it talks to production
194 tests. Anything that can write to a live game server on behalf of a chat message needs to be wrong in a controlled environment first, and a bot is unusually easy to test badly: the happy path is trivial and every interesting case is a disconnect, a restart or a malformed message.