15

Getting Started

James Brotosky edited this page 2026-01-16 13:03:22 -05:00

Table of Contents

• Getting Started with RhythmWorks
• Prerequisites
• Create a Discord Application
• Configure OAuth2 and Bot Permissions
• Link Newly Created Bot to your Discord Server
• Generate and Save the Bot Token
• Enable Privileged Gateway Intents
• Download Necessary Files
• 1. RhythmWorks Binary
• 2. yt-dlp
• Installing Dependencies
• Running RhythmWorks
• Next Steps

Getting Started with RhythmWorks

RhythmWorks requires a custom Discord bot to function. This bot cannot be added from Discord's App Store - it must be created manually through the Discord Developer Portal

Follow the steps below to setup the bot and required dependencies.

Prerequisites

Before getting started, ensure you have:

• A Discord account with permissions to add bots to a server
• Access to the Discord Developer Portal
• RhythmWorks - found later in these instructions, for your current operating system
• yt-dlp - found later in these instructions, for your current operating system

Create a Discord Application

1. Go to the Discord Development Portal
2. Click New Application
3. Give it a name

Configure OAuth2 and Bot Permissions

1. Open your application in the portal and navigate to OAuth2
2. Scroll down to the OAuth2 URL Generator
3. Under Scopes, check:
   • "bot"
4. Under Bot Permission, enable the following:
   • Send Messages
   • Read Message History
   • Connect
   • Speak

Link Newly Created Bot to your Discord Server

1. Copy the Generated URL and paste it into your browser
   • This will automatically launch discord and allow you to add the bot to your server

Generate and Save the Bot Token

1. In the Developer Portal, click bot on the left hand side
2. Click Reset Token
3. Copy the token and store it securely
4. When you start the bot, paste the token into the prompt to authenticate and connect the bot

Enable Privileged Gateway Intents

Still in the Bot section:

1. Enable all three privileged gateway intents:

   • Presence Intent
   • Server Members Intent
   • Message Content Intent

   

Download Necessary Files

1. RhythmWorks Binary

Go to the Releases page and download the correct RhythmWorks binary for your operating system. It currently supports Windows (RhythmWorks.exe) and Linux (RhythmWorks).

2. yt-dlp

yt-dlp is a feature-rich command-line audio/video downloader with support for thousands of sites. The project is a fork of youtube-dl based on the now inactive youtube-dlc.

Download from the links below, RhythmWorks is designed to work with a specific version of yt-dlp. You can find more information on yt-dlp here.

Windows - yt-dlp

Linux - yt-dlp

Installing Dependencies

yt-dlp is not an installable file, it is a standalone executable to which RhythmWorks is a wrapper for.

1. Place the downloaded yt-dlp file into the same directory as the RhythmWorks executable

Running RhythmWorks

1. Necessary Modifications

• Windows

  1. Right Click on the yt-dlp executable
  2. Click Properties
  3. Under the general tab, at the bottom, checkmark the unblock box that's next to:

  This file came from another computer and might be blocked to help protect this computer.

  4. You might have to do these same steps on the RhythmWorks executable as well

• Linux

  1. Open the terminal of your choice
  2. cd /path/to/yt-dlp
  3. run

  sudo chmod +x yt-dlp
  

  4. You might have to do these same steps on the RhythmWorks binary as well

2. Open the RhythmWorks executable
3. When prompted, paste in your bot token from earlier
4. RhythmWorks should say that it is successfully connected to the Discord server

Next Steps

Now that RhythmWorks is up and running, continue on to the commands section for how to play music in your Discord Server.