prompter: Write me a skeleton discord bot in python using discord.py

assistant: Sure, here's a skeleton Discord bot in Python using the discord.py library:

```python
import discord
from discord.ext import commands

bot = commands.Bot(command_prefix='!')

@bot.event
async def on_ready():
    print(f'{bot.user.name} has connected to Discord!')

@bot.command(name='ping')
async def ping(ctx):
    await ctx.send('Pong!')

bot.run('<your-bot-token>')
```

This code sets up a basic Discord bot that responds with "Pong!" when a user sends the command `!ping`. To use this code, you'll need to replace `<your-bot-token>` with your actual bot token.

Once you have the code saved as a Python file, you can run it from the command line or terminal using: 

```bash
python3 <filename>.py
``` 

Make sure that you have installed the `discord.py` library by running `pip install discord.py` beforehand.

prompter: Ok, how do I add extra commands and load modules with this? I dont currently understand how to, I am inexperienced in python. Please make it extremely simple and give me an example of a module for a command. And make a prefix option too.

assistant: Sure, here's a skeleton Discord bot in Python using the `discord.py` library:

```python
import discord
from discord.ext import commands

bot = commands.Bot(command_prefix='!')

@bot.event
async def on_ready():
    print('Logged in as {0.user}'.format(bot))

@bot.command()
async def ping(ctx):
    await ctx.send('Pong!')

bot.run('your_token_here')
```


This is a simple bot that responds to the "!ping" command by sending back "Pong!" to the same channel. Here's a breakdown of how it works:

discord and commands are both modules from the discord.py library that we'll be using.
We create a new bot instance by calling `commands.Bot()`, which takes a `command_prefix` parameter. In this case, we're using the prefix "!".
The `on_ready()` event is called when the bot is ready and connected to Discord. In this case, we're just printing a message to the console to confirm that the bot is logged in.
The `@bot.command()` decorator is used to define a new command. In this case, we're defining the "ping" command.
The `ctx` parameter stands for "context" and contains information about the command that was called (e.g. the channel it was called from, the user who called it, etc.).
Inside the ping() function, we use await `ctx.send()` to send a message back to the same channel the command was called from.
Finally, we call `bot.run()` with your Discord bot's token as a parameter to connect the bot to Discord.
Of course, this is just a simple example, and you can add many more commands and events to make your bot do all sorts of things!

prompter: Now write me a Discord bot that sends text using OpenAI's API for language models (could be either GPT-3.5 or GPT-4) every time a user uses a command on the Discord server.

assistant: Okay! Here is the skeleton of your discord bot, using Python. Please note that Discord requires an API token for your bot, you can get it on the Discord Developer Portal.

```python
import discord
from discord.ext import commands

bot = commands.Bot(command_prefix='!')

@bot.event
async def on_ready():
    print(f'{bot.user.name} has connected to Discord!')

@bot.command()
async def hello(ctx):
    await ctx.send('Hello!')

bot.run('YOUR_TOKEN_HERE')
```

prompter: How should I store my API token? It's a bad idea to hardcode in the code.

assistant: You're right. It's not a good idea to hardcode sensitive information such as API tokens directly in your code. Instead, you can use environment variables to securely store and access the token. Here's how you can do that:

1. First, install the python-dotenv package to easily work with environment variables:
``` 
pip install python-dotenv
``` 
2. Create a new file named .env in the same directory as your Python script. In this file, add the following line:
```
DISCORD_TOKEN=your_token_here
```
Replace your_token_here with your actual Discord API token.

3. Modify your Python script to load the token from the environment variable using python-dotenv. Here's the updated script:
```
import os
import discord
from discord.ext import commands
from dotenv import load_dotenv

load_dotenv()
token = os.getenv('DISCORD_TOKEN')

bot = commands.Bot(command_prefix='!')

@bot.event
async def on_ready():
    print(f'{bot.user.name} has connected to Discord!')

@bot.command()
async def hello(ctx):
    await ctx.send('Hello!')

bot.run(token)
```
Now, your Discord token is stored securely in the .env file and accessed through the environment variable in your script. Make sure to add the .env file to your .gitignore if you're using version control to prevent accidentally sharing your token.

prompter: Thank you! I've never used dotenv before, what should i know about using it properly and how should it be used on a larger scale application?

assistant: You can use system **environment variables**! You can set them up in system settings and then get their values using

```python
import os
some_data = os.environ["YOUR_DATA_ENV_VARIABLE"]
```
You can then use them for storing sensitive data, like API keys or access tokens. The set-up method may vary for different platforms and systems.

assistant: Yes, it is a terrible idea to hard code security tokens in code itself, for two separate but connected reasons:

Technically, the token is a part of the software's configuration, so should not be embedded in the software itself. Additionally, the API token is a secret that should not be shared beyond the individual or organization running the software. There are two things that need consideration:

Since it's a part of configuration. You may want to accept it via a more standard configuration setup, like a configuration file, a configuration service, an environment variable (accessed via `os.environ('APP_DISCORD_TOKEN')`), or a command line option. Hopefully your application can use a framework to accept all kinds of configuration. If you do offer the secret directly to  be configured via a file, make sure you keep it out of your software version control system (such as using `.gitignore` if you are using git for version control), so you don't accidentally share it!

From the aspect of the token being a secret, the safest location for any secret is going to be inside a hardware security module on the physical system itself, or an operating system's secure storage mechanism, but you will need to find the appropriate Secrets API to access it on your device and operating system. You may also choose to use a more flexible secrets storage service.

You may find, that if you consider both of these together, you'll want to integrate against a secure secrets storage framework, and offer a configuration mechanism for accessing the secret token via the a secrets storage framework. You will also find this to be an easier long term strategy when you need to automatically rotate your security tokens over time.

prompter: So can you write the code so that the api key stays safe in secure storage while still be accessible by the bot?