FireCMS & Firebase Discord Bot

A long-running Discord bot written in TypeScript that answers FireCMS and Firebase related questions using the gemini-3.5-flash model and the official FireCMS documentation.

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Features

• Knowledge-Backed Answers: Dynamically loads llms.txt (the complete FireCMS docs) into the model's system context for 100% accurate, hallucination-free answers.
• Thread & Reply Support: Follows conversation context within DMs, threads, and message replies.
• Auto-Chunking: Automatically splits answers exceeding Discord's 2000-character limit without breaking code blocks or words.
• Typing Indicator: Shows when the bot is processing/generating an answer.

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1. Setup Discord Bot Application

To run the bot, you need to register an application on the Discord Developer Portal:

1. Visit the Discord Developer Portal.
2. Click New Application and give it a name (e.g., FireCMS Helper).
3. Navigate to the Bot tab on the left sidebar:
   • Click Add Bot.
   • Under Privileged Gateway Intents, enable:
     • Guild Members Intent (Optional, but recommended)
     • Presence Intent (Optional)
     • Message Content Intent (⚠️ Required to read incoming user messages)
   • Click Reset Token and copy the bot token. Keep this safe (this is your DISCORD_TOKEN).
4. Navigate to the OAuth2 tab on the left sidebar, then click URL Generator:
   • Under Scopes, select bot.
   • Under Bot Permissions, select:
     • Read Messages/View Channels
     • Send Messages
     • Send Messages in Threads
     • Read Message History
     • Add Reactions
   • Copy the generated URL and open it in your browser to invite the bot to your Discord server.

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2. Environment Configuration

Create a .env file in the discord-bot/ directory with the following variables:

# Your Discord bot token (from the developer portal)
DISCORD_TOKEN=your_discord_token_here

# Your Google Gemini API Key
GEMINI_API_KEY=your_gemini_api_key_here

# The Gemini model to use (defaults to gemini-3.5-flash if not specified)
GEMINI_MODEL=gemini-3.5-flash

# Optional: Comma-separated list of channel IDs where the bot is allowed to reply.
# If omitted or empty, the bot responds in all channels it can access.
ALLOWED_CHANNELS=

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3. Local Development

From the root of the monorepo:

Install dependencies

yarn install

Run the bot in development mode (auto-reload)

yarn discord-bot:dev

Build & Run the production version

# Build the package
yarn build

# Start the bot
yarn discord-bot

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4. Deploying to Google Cloud Run (GCP)

Since this bot maintains a persistent WebSocket connection to Discord, it needs to run continuously. We can achieve this on Cloud Run by configuring a minimum instance count of 1.

Step 4.1: Build and Push Docker Image

Set your GCP project ID and build the Docker container using Google Cloud Build:

# Set your GCP project ID
export PROJECT_ID="your-gcp-project-id"

# Submit build to Google Cloud Build (run from the monorepo root)
gcloud builds submit --tag gcr.io/$PROJECT_ID/firecms-discord-bot:latest .

Step 4.2: Deploy to Cloud Run

Deploy the image to Cloud Run as a service. We must set:

• --no-cpu-throttling (ensures background tasks like websocket heartbeats run normally)
• --min-instances 1 (keeps the container alive so it doesn't disconnect from Discord)
• Secret or Env vars for DISCORD_TOKEN and GEMINI_API_KEY.

gcloud run deploy firecms-discord-bot \
  --image gcr.io/$PROJECT_ID/firecms-discord-bot:latest \
  --platform managed \
  --region europe-west3 \
  --min-instances 1 \
  --no-cpu-throttling \
  --set-env-vars="GEMINI_MODEL=gemini-3.5-flash" \
  --set-secrets="DISCORD_TOKEN=DISCORD_TOKEN:latest,GEMINI_API_KEY=GEMINI_API_KEY:latest" \
  --no-allow-unauthenticated

(Note: If you prefer simple env variables instead of GCP Secret Manager secrets, you can replace --set-secrets with --set-env-vars="DISCORD_TOKEN=...,GEMINI_API_KEY=...")