Installing Pycord#

This is the documentation for Pycord, a library for Python to aid in creating applications that utilise the Discord API.

Prerequisites#

Pycord works with Python 3.8 or higher. Support for earlier versions of Python is not provided. Python 2.7 or lower is not supported. Python 3.7 or lower is not supported.

Installing#

Note

For new features in upcoming versions, you will need to install the pre-release until a stable version is released.

python3 -m pip install -U py-cord --pre

For Windows users, this command should be used to install the pre-release:

py -3 -m pip install -U py-cord --pre

You can get the library directly from PyPI:

python3 -m pip install -U py-cord

If you are using Windows, then the following should be used instead:

py -3 -m pip install -U py-cord

To install additional packages for speedup, you should use py-cord[speed] instead of py-cord, e.g.

# Linux/macOS
python3 -m pip install -U "py-cord[speed]"

# Windows
py -3 -m pip install -U py-cord[speed]

To get voice support, you should use py-cord[voice] instead of py-cord, e.g.

python3 -m pip install -U py-cord[voice]

On Linux environments, installing voice requires getting the following dependencies:

For a Debian-based system, the following command will get these dependencies:

$ apt install libffi-dev libnacl-dev python3-dev

Remember to check your permissions!

Virtual Environments#

Sometimes you want to keep libraries from polluting system installs or use a different version of libraries than the ones installed on the system. You might also not have permissions to install libraries system-wide. For this purpose, the standard library as of Python 3.3 comes with a concept called “Virtual Environment”s to help maintain these separate versions.

A more in-depth tutorial is found on Virtual Environments and Packages.

However, for the quick and dirty:

  1. Go to your project’s working directory:

    $ cd your-bot-source
$ python3 -m venv bot-env

  2. Activate the virtual environment:

    $ source bot-env/bin/activate

    On Windows you activate it with:

    $ bot-env\Scripts\activate.bat

  3. Use pip like usual:

    $ pip install -U py-cord

Congratulations. You now have a virtual environment all set up.

Basic Concepts#

Pycord revolves around the concept of events. An event is something you listen to and then respond to. For example, when a message happens, you will receive an event about it that you can respond to.

A quick example to showcase how events work:

import discord

class MyClient(discord.Client):
    async def on_ready(self):
        print(f'Logged on as {self.user}!')

    async def on_message(self, message):
        print(f'Message from {message.author}: {message.content}')

client = MyClient()
client.run('my token goes here')