Payment News Discord Bot

A Discord bot that aggregates payment industry news from RSS feeds, uses AI to summarize and categorize articles, and delivers daily digests.

🚀 Status: Deployed and running 24/7 on Railway 📦 Repository: https://github.com/ratanon97/PaymentNewsDiscordBot

Features

• Fetches news from Finextra Payments and Payments Dive RSS feeds
• AI-powered article summarization using Anthropic's Claude (claude-3-5-sonnet-20240620)
• Automatic categorization (Global vs Thailand-specific)
• Discord embeds with rich formatting and emoji reactions
• Daily scheduled digests at 8 AM Bangkok time
• Manual commands for on-demand news
• SQLite database to prevent duplicate articles
• HTML tag stripping and URL cleaning

Project Structure

PaymentNewsBot/
├── bot.py                      # Discord bot logic and commands
├── news_fetcher.py             # RSS fetching and AI processing
├── database.py                 # SQLite database operations
├── scheduler.py                # Daily digest scheduling
├── config.py                   # Configuration management
├── requirements.txt            # Python dependencies
├── Procfile                    # Railway deployment configuration
├── runtime.txt                 # Python version specification
├── .env                        # Environment variables (create this)
├── .env.example               # Environment variables template
├── README.md                  # This file
├── REQUIREMENTS.md            # Technical requirements document
└── SECURITY_IMPROVEMENTS.md   # Security documentation

Setup

1. Install Dependencies

pip install -r requirements.txt

2. Create Discord Bot

1. Go to Discord Developer Portal
2. Click "New Application" and give it a name
3. Go to "Bot" section and click "Add Bot"
4. Enable "Message Content Intent" under Privileged Gateway Intents
5. Copy the bot token

3. Get Bot's Channel ID

1. Enable Developer Mode in Discord (User Settings > Advanced > Developer Mode)
2. Right-click the channel where you want the bot to post
3. Click "Copy ID"

4. Get Anthropic API Key

1. Sign up at Anthropic Console
2. Create an API key

5. Configure Environment Variables

Copy .env.example to .env and fill in your credentials:

cp .env.example .env

Edit .env:

DISCORD_TOKEN=your_discord_bot_token_here
DISCORD_CHANNEL_ID=your_channel_id_here
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=your_anthropic_api_key_here

6. Invite Bot to Your Server

1. Go to Discord Developer Portal > Your Application > OAuth2 > URL Generator
2. Select scopes: bot
3. Select bot permissions: Send Messages, Read Message History
4. Copy the generated URL and open it in your browser
5. Select your server and authorize

Usage

Run Without Scheduler (Manual Commands Only)

python bot.py

Run With Daily Scheduler

python scheduler.py

Discord Commands

• !digest - Manually trigger a news digest (fetches new articles and displays them)
• !latest - Show the last 5 articles from the database

Railway Deployment (24/7 Cloud Hosting) ✅

This bot is currently deployed and running on Railway!

If you want to deploy your own instance:

1. Fork or Clone Repository

git clone https://github.com/ratanon97/PaymentNewsDiscordBot.git
cd PaymentNewsDiscordBot

2. Deploy to Railway

1. Go to Railway and sign up/login with GitHub
2. Click "New Project" → "Deploy from GitHub repo"
3. Select your forked/cloned PaymentNewsBot repository
4. Railway will automatically detect your Procfile and runtime.txt

3. Configure Environment Variables

In your Railway project dashboard:

1. Go to "Variables" tab
2. Add these three environment variables:
   • DISCORD_TOKEN = your_discord_bot_token
   • DISCORD_CHANNEL_ID = your_channel_id
   • ANTHROPIC_API_KEY = your_anthropic_api_key

4. Automatic Deployment

Railway will automatically deploy your bot after adding the environment variables. Check the deployment logs to ensure it started successfully.

Important Notes for Railway

• Railway uses the Procfile to know how to run your app
• The bot runs as a "worker" process (not a web server)
• The database file will persist across deployments
• Check logs via Railway dashboard if you encounter issues
• The bot will restart automatically if it crashes

Railway Costs

Railway offers:

• $5 free credit per month (sufficient for a small Discord bot)
• Pay-as-you-go pricing after free credits
• This bot typically uses minimal resources (~$5-10/month)

Configuration

RSS Feed Sources

Currently configured feeds in config.py:

• Finextra Payments: https://www.finextra.com/rss/channel.aspx?channel=payments
• Payments Dive: https://www.paymentsdive.com/feeds/news/

Customizable Settings

Edit config.py to customize:

• RSS feed sources (add/remove feeds)
• Digest time (default: 08:00 Bangkok time)
• Number of articles shown in !latest command (default: 5)
• Command prefix (default: !)
• Anthropic model (current: claude-3-5-sonnet-20240620)
• API timeouts and retry logic

Database

The bot uses SQLite to store articles and prevent duplicates. The database file payment_news.db is created automatically on first run.

How It Works

1. Fetching: Bot fetches articles from configured RSS feeds
2. Processing: Each article is sent to Claude API for:
   • 2-3 sentence summary
   • Categorization (Global or Thailand-specific)
3. Storage: Articles are stored in SQLite with deduplication
4. Delivery: Articles are formatted and sent to Discord channel
5. Scheduling: Daily digest runs automatically at 8 AM Bangkok time

Next Steps

After the basic bot is working, you can add:

• Reaction-based article saving
• User preferences for categories
• Web scraping for non-RSS sources
• Article search functionality
• Analytics and trending topics

Troubleshooting

Bot doesn't respond to commands:

• Ensure "Message Content Intent" is enabled in Discord Developer Portal
• Check that the bot has permission to read/send messages in the channel

API errors:

• Verify your Anthropic API key is valid and has credits
• Check your Discord token is correct

No articles showing:

• RSS feeds may be down or changed URLs
• Check console for error messages
• Try running !digest manually to see detailed errors