reminder-rs

Reminder Bot for Discord.

How do I use it?

I offer a hosted version of the bot. You can invite it with: https://invite.reminder-bot.com. The catch is that repeating reminders are paid on the hosted version of the bot. Keep reading if you want to host it yourself.

You'll need rustc and cargo for compilation. To run, you'll need Python 3 still (due to no suitable replacement for dateparser in Rust)

Build APT package

Recommended method.

By default, this builds targeting Ubuntu 20.04. Modify the Containerfile if you wish to target a different platform. These instructions are written using podman, but docker should work too.

1. Install container software and Make: sudo apt install podman make.
2. Install database server: sudo apt install mysql-server-8.0. Create a database called reminders
3. Install SQLx CLI matching the project's SQLx version: cargo install sqlx-cli --version 0.8.2 --locked.
4. Install the local build requirements (Rust, Node.js/npm, GCC, CMake, pkg-config, and OpenSSL development headers), then install dashboard dependencies: npm ci --prefix reminder-dashboard.
5. Export the URL of your build/test database: export DATABASE_URL="mysql://user[:password]@localhost/reminders".
6. From the source code directory, execute sqlx migrate run.
7. Run make (or make build). This prepares SQLx query metadata in .sqlx, runs the Rust tests, builds the reminder-rs container image, and runs cargo deb inside it. The resulting package is written to target/debian/.

Preparation and database-dependent tests use the local database. The container packaging step uses the prepared .sqlx metadata with SQLX_OFFLINE=true, so it does not need database access, including when a .env file is present in the mounted source directory.

The stages can also be run separately: make prepare, make test (includes preparation), and make image (includes preparation and tests). Override IMAGE to change the container image tag, or PODMAN to use another container command, for example make PODMAN=docker.

Compiling for other target

1. Install requirements: sudo apt install gcc gcc-multilib cmake libssl-dev build-essential python3-dateparser
2. Install rustup from https://rustup.rs
3. Install the nightly toolchain: rustup toolchain default nightly
4. Install database server: sudo apt install mysql-server-8.0. Create a database called reminders.
5. Install sqlx-cli: cargo install sqlx-cli.
6. Run migrations: sqlx migrate run.
7. Set environment variables:
   • DATABASE_URL - the URL of your MySQL database (mysql://user[:password]@domain/database)
8. Build: cargo build --release

Configuring

Reminder Bot reads a number of environment variables. Some are essential, and others have hardcoded fallbacks. Environment variables can be loaded from a .env file in the working directory.

Required Variables

• DATABASE_URL - the URL of your MySQL database (mysql://user[:password]@domain/database)
• DISCORD_TOKEN - your application's bot user's authorization token

Other Variables

• MIN_INTERVAL - default 600, defines the shortest interval the bot should accept
• LOCAL_TIMEZONE - default UTC, necessary for calculations in the natural language processor
• SUBSCRIPTION_ROLES - default None, accepts a list of Discord role IDs that are given to subscribed users
• CNC_GUILD - default None, accepts a single Discord guild ID for the server that the subscription roles belong to
• PYTHON_LOCATION - default /usr/bin/python3. Can be changed if your Python executable is located somewhere else
• THEME_COLOR - default 8fb677. Specifies the hex value of the color to use on info message embeds

Dashboard image uploads

Image URL inputs offer an Upload image button when all of these settings are supplied:

• S3_BUCKET — destination bucket name.
• S3_REGION — bucket region, for example eu-west-2.
• S3_ACCESS_KEY_ID and S3_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY — credentials with s3:PutObject and s3:DeleteObject permissions for the bucket's uploads/ prefix.
• S3_PUBLIC_URL — public base URL for the bucket or CDN, for example https://my-bucket.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com. Objects must be publicly readable through this URL; the application does not change bucket policies or set object ACLs.

NSFW_CHECK_ENABLED defaults to true, and enables the use of a small model to block uploading of NSFW images. Set it to false to skip NSFW moderation and model initialization. Empty or unrecognized values keep checks enabled.

The Debian package includes reminder-rs-clean-images.timer, an hourly cleanup job. Enable it after configuring S3 and starting the bot (which applies database migrations):

sudo systemctl enable --now reminder-rs-clean-images.timer

Each run records the first observed orphan time in image_uploads.orphaned_at (UTC). An upload is orphaned when neither a reminder (including archived reminders) nor a template uses its URL as an avatar, image, thumbnail, author icon or footer icon. Referenced uploads have this timestamp cleared. IMAGE_UPLOAD_ORPHAN_RETENTION_SECONDS controls the additional retention time after detection; it defaults to 604800 (seven days) and must be a positive integer. Unsaved uploads are also covered. Cleanup rechecks references before deleting and removes the tracking row only after S3 confirms deletion; failed deletions are retried on later runs. Each run attempts up to 1,000 expired uploads from the configured public URL's uploads/ prefix.

For other deployments, schedule /path/to/reminder-rs clean-images hourly with cron, using the same working directory and configuration as the bot. The command requires no Discord token and skips NSFW model initialization. With no S3 settings it exits successfully without work; partial S3 settings or invalid retention values fail the job.

Running with Docker

RustFS for local development

Start the local object store and initialize the image upload bucket:

docker compose --env-file conf/rustfs.env -f compose.rustfs.yaml up -d

Add the settings from conf/rustfs.env to your local .env, then restart the bot running on your host. RustFS serves the S3 API at http://127.0.0.1:9000 and its console at http://127.0.0.1:9001. Log into the console with the access key and secret key from conf/rustfs.env. Both ports bind to localhost. The named data volume persists across restarts.

The initializer creates reminder-images if needed and permits anonymous reads of its uploads/ objects. Uploads, deletes and bucket listing require credentials. These settings enable dashboard image uploads locally; NSFW_CHECK_ENABLED keeps its configured value. S3_ENDPOINT uses path-style addressing for RustFS, and S3_PUBLIC_URL includes the bucket name because the browser fetches objects through that public URL.

docker compose --env-file conf/rustfs.env -f compose.rustfs.yaml logs rustfs-init
docker compose --env-file conf/rustfs.env -f compose.rustfs.yaml down

down keeps the data volume. This development stack is separate from the bot/database stack below. The RustFS Docker documentation describes the upstream container configuration.

A compose.yml file is provided to aid in running the bot agnostically using docker.

• Populate a .env file as in conf/default.env
• Add the additional variable ROCKET_SECRET_KEY with a key generated from head -c64 /dev/urandom | base64
• Run docker compose up

Please note that this is not production-ready when run via compose. We do not offer a way for backing up of your data, or a way to run the dashboard securely via HTTPS, which is required for OAuth.