Global vs User-Scoped Variables

The second parameter determines the scope:

• Omitted or empty: the variable is treated as global — accessible from any command, any user, any server.
• User ID provided: the variable is user-scoped (the value shared by all servers for this user) — each user has their own independent value for the same variable name. Use $authorID to reference the current user. This is a different storage from $getUserVar (which reads the value of the member in a server, except in bots that still use the legacy user-variable setting).

Storage Details

• Values written by $setVar are stored as text. When reading back, you receive the exact string that was stored.
• The name is trimmed. Names are case-sensitive for stored values: Score and score are two different variables. An empty name raises an error.
• A global variable that has never been set returns an empty string, and reading it creates it with an empty value (it then exists for $varExists).
• A user-scoped variable that has no value for that user returns the default value declared for it (see below), or an empty string if none.
• The default of a user-scoped variable is declared in the Variables catalogue, or automatically by the first $setVar[name;value;User ID] write for that name, which uses the written value as the default for every user who has no stored value.

Comparison with $var

Aspect	$var	$getVar
Persistence	Execution only	Persistent (bot storage)
Scope	Local	Global or user
Use case	Temporary calculations	Long-term storage

Examples

Read Global Variable

$title[Global Setting]
$description[Maintenance mode: `$getVar[maintenanceMode]`]
$color[#5865F2]