Recipe: Discord Community Bot · rousseau-agent docs

Overview

Rousseau in a Discord server, answering FAQ questions with docs citations. Scoped to specific channels through user-id allowlisting on the transport side (rousseau does not filter by channel today; add the bot to specific channels only, and set the allowlist to the user IDs of the community managers if you want to lock it down further).

Prerequisites

Discord bot token; Message Content intent enabled.
Docs directory bind-mounted at /workspace/docs.
Any provider with tool-use.

Config

provider: anthropic

anthropic:
  model: claude-sonnet-4-6
  max_tokens: 4096

agent:
  system_prompt: |
    Answer community questions from the docs directory only.
    When unsure, say "I don't know — try #help".
    Keep responses to under 5 sentences. Cite `docs/<file>.md` when quoting.
  approver:
    mode: pattern
    default: deny
    allow:
      - {tool: read, match: ".*"}
      - {tool: grep, match: ".*"}

discord:
  token: "MTIz…"
  allowlist: []       # empty = anyone in the channels the bot is in

Launch

rousseau discord

Invite the bot to your Discord server with a scoped invite URL (Bot permissions: Read Messages, Send Messages, Read Message History).

Verification

Checkbox Post a common question; the bot answers within 3 s with a citation.
Checkbox Ask something outside the docs; the bot says it doesn't know and points to #help.
Checkbox rousseau session list --limit 5 shows one session per Discord user.

Failure modes

Bot answers Disallowed intents — the bot's invite lacks the Message Content intent scope. Regenerate with the correct intents.
Rate-limited — Discord 429s on burst posts. The transport retries with backoff.
Cost spike — set the allowlist tightly or max_tokens lower.