Allow bots to trigger interactions

[Taucher2003]

Proposal

Allow bots to trigger interactions of other bots just like users can

Why?

The restriction of not being able to trigger interactions blocks the possibilty of e2e testing for bots. We can do unit/integration tests for internal functionality, but we can't do end to end testing to verify that the bot actually works with Discord.

This worked with message commands as the "QA Bot" was able to just send a command via message and then check which actions the bot under test has performed. With Slash Commands and other interactions, this is not possible anymore.

This would also improve the possibilities of monitoring as it would make it possible to check if the bot is actually still working and not just check the online status (which is pretty poor monitoring as it could have died internally but still show as online)

Alternatives

Instead of using a bot, a user account could be used. However, that would be self-botting and is against the TOS.

[jagrosh]

If this was added, I'd want it to be settable by developers to allow or not allow bot interactions (ideally with the default being off). While the use-case provided here would be nice, allowing all bots to interact with other bots could lead to abuse, spamming, or automation of intentionally-not-automated tasks. Filtering out the interactions from a bot would be trivial, but it could end up being a lot of unnecessary traffic (especially in a targeted attack).

[Auriosi]

This could easily be abused, and interactions are meant and built for users only. Bots also can't account for what a user might actually do, only what the developer thinks they'll do, so you'd be better off recruiting users to test your bot.

[Taucher2003]

It is correct that we can't test everything a user might try to do, but this is more about testing the actual functionality.
Also, a test suite often contains regression tests which make sure, that you don't re-introduce bugs you previously fixed.

If you are a developer, you should know the importance of automated testing. Especially because it is a reproducable test which doesn't forget to test one thing.

A solution proposed above your comment would be ideal, which would include a setting if a bot allows interactions from other bots.
But it should be possible to toggle the setting from the API with the bot token and not just the developer dashboard.

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Another point: With message commands, the bot developer was able to decide for himself, if he allows other bots to trigger actions. With the interactions, discord just took that decision and just said no to it which can be pretty limiting (as mentioned with the tests)