Discord.py bot Uptime with Healthchecks.io

Sometimes you are running a discord bot using discord.py (python library) and it goes offline. Sure would be nice to know right?

Let's go through some easy steps for adding a background @task to your discord.py bot to ping healthchecks.io on a regular interval.

Prerequisites

Discord bot created (using discord.py library)
Python 3.10+
virtual env with requests library
Healthchecks.io account

Set up healthchecks

Create an account on HealthChecks.io
Click on 'New Project' (give it a name like "Discord Checks")
Click 'Add Check'
- Name: Bot Uptime
- slug: (use suggested)
- tags: (leave blank)
- Schedule: Simple
- Period: 30 Minutes
- Grace: 10 Minutes
Click 'Save'
Copy the 'ping' url

Warning

Make sure to set up an 'alert' on Healthchecks.io like discord, or email!

Simple discord bot

This tutorial assumes you know how to create a discord.py bot, so I'm not going to go through the steps necessary for creating your bot. Let's just assume that you already have a bot and it's running.

Discord Bot Howto

If you don't know how to create a discord bot, check out the guide: How to Make a Discord Bot in Python by RealPython

Below is an extremely simple discord bot (happens to be the example bot from discord.py docs):

# This example requires the 'message_content' intent.

import discord

intents = discord.Intents.default()
intents.message_content = True

client = discord.Client(intents=intents)

BOT_TOKEN='Your Token Here'

@client.event
async def on_ready():
    print(f'We have logged in as {client.user}')

@client.event
async def on_message(message):
    if message.author == client.user:
        return

    if message.content.startswith('$hello'):
        await message.channel.send('Hello!')

client.run(BOT_TOKEN)

Now let's say we want to add a task to ping healthchecks.io every 30 minutes.

First thing we need to do is get the requests library

pip install requests

Add a discord `@task`

Highlighted lines of code below add the task which pings healthchecks

import discord
from discord.ext import tasks
import requests


intents = discord.Intents.default()
intents.message_content = True

client = discord.Client(intents=intents)

HEALTHCHECK_URL='Your Healthcheck Ping URL Here'
BOT_TOKEN='Your Token Here'

@tasks.loop(minutes=30)
async def ping_healthchecks():
    try:
        requests.get(HEALTHCHECK_URL, timeout=10)
    except requests.RequestException as e:
        # Log ping failure here...
        print("Ping failed: %s" % e)

@client.event
async def on_ready():
    print(f'We have logged in as {client.user}')
    # Ping once on startup
    await ping_healthchecks()
    ping_healthchecks.start()

@client.event
async def on_message(message):
    if message.author == client.user:
        return

    if message.content.startswith('$hello'):
        await message.channel.send('Hello!')

client.run(BOT_TOKEN)

That's it, fire up your bot and it should ping your healthcheck right away.

As usual, ping me on mastodon if you have any questions or thoughts.