Handling Rich Interactions in Bot Creator: Buttons, Select Menus, and Modals

Discord’s rich components—Buttons, Select Menus, and Modals—take your bot’s user experience to a professional, commercial grade. Instead of typing long command arguments, users can tap buttons, choose roles from dropdown lists, or fill out structured pop-up forms.

In this guide, we will break down exactly how Bot Creator processes the interactionCreate event under the hood and how you can leverage its native runtime variables in your BDFD scripts.

1. The Core Interaction Variables

Whenever a user interacts with a component, the Bot Creator runner dispatches an interactionCreate context. The following global variables are always resolved:

Variable	Type	Description
`((interaction.kind))`	string	The type of interaction: `button`, `select`, `modal`, `command`, or `autocomplete`.
`((interaction.customId))`	string	The unique developer-defined identifier bound to the clicked element.
`((interaction.userId))`	string	The Discord ID of the user who triggered the interaction.
`((interaction.channelId))`	string	The ID of the channel where the interaction happened.
`((interaction.guildId))`	string	The ID of the server where the interaction happened.
`((interaction.messageId))`	string	The ID of the message holding the button or dropdown.

[!NOTE] Member context variables like ((member.nick)), ((member.joinedAt)), and ((member.roles)) are automatically enriched and available whenever the interaction occurs inside a guild server!

2. Handling Button Clicks

Buttons are the simplest way to add direct, click-to-trigger actions. In BDFD, when creating a button, you assign it a Custom ID (e.g. button_verify or button_ticket).

When clicked, the runner triggers the interactionCreate event. You can easily direct execution flows using a simple conditional structure:

$if[((interaction.customId))==button_verify]
  $sendResponse[Your account has been successfully verified! // ephemeral]
  $giveRole[((interaction.userId));112233445566778899]
$endif

[!TIP] Always verify that ((interaction.kind)) equals button if you have overlapping custom IDs between buttons and dropdowns to prevent execution leakage.

Select menus allow users to choose one or multiple items from a pre-configured list. Bot Creator supports five distinct select menu formats and automatically parses selected options into readable collections:

A. String Selects (Text Options)

For dropdowns where the choices are custom text values (e.g. choosing a command category).

((interaction.stringSelect.value)) — Returns the first selected choice.
((interaction.stringSelect.values)) — Returns a comma-separated list of all chosen options (for multi-select).
((interaction.stringSelect.count)) — Returns the total count of chosen options.

B. User Selects

For dropdowns populated dynamically with guild members.

((interaction.userSelect.userId)) — Returns the first selected user ID.
((interaction.userSelect.userIds)) — Returns all selected user IDs.
((interaction.userSelect.userCount)) — Returns the total count of chosen users.

C. Role Selects

For dropdowns populated dynamically with server roles.

((interaction.roleSelect.roleId)) — Returns the first selected role ID.
((interaction.roleSelect.roleIds)) — Returns all selected role IDs.
((interaction.roleSelect.roleCount)) — Returns the total count of chosen roles.

D. Channel Selects

For dropdowns populated dynamically with server text/voice channels.

((interaction.channelSelect.channelId)) — Returns the first selected channel ID.
((interaction.channelSelect.channelIds)) — Returns all selected channel IDs.
((interaction.channelSelect.channelCount)) — Returns the total count of chosen channels.

E. Mentionable Selects

For dropdowns where users can select either users or roles.

((interaction.mentionableSelect.userId)) — Returns the selected user or role ID.
((interaction.mentionableSelect.userIds)) — Returns all selected IDs.
((interaction.mentionableSelect.userCount)) — Returns the total count.

Modals display popup form dialogs with text inputs. When a modal is submitted, the runner processes it with the kind set to modal.

Every input field in the modal must have a Custom ID. Bot Creator maps these inputs dynamically into the ((modal.YOUR_INPUT_CUSTOM_ID)) syntax!

If you build a registration modal with:

Modal Custom ID: user_registration_form
Text Input 1 Custom ID: user_realname
Text Input 2 Custom ID: user_description

When the user submits the form, you can fetch and store their answers instantly inside the interactionCreate handler:

$if[((interaction.kind))==modal]
  $if[((modal.customId))==user_registration_form]
    $setVar[profile_name;((modal.user_realname));((interaction.userId))]
    $setVar[profile_desc;((modal.user_description));((interaction.userId))]
    
    $sendResponse[Profile successfully configured, ((user.username))! // ephemeral]
  $endif
$endif

[!IMPORTANT] Modal inputs are always processed as strings. If you expect a number, use standard parsing tools like $parseInt before executing mathematical comparisons inside your conditions.

5. Full Interactive Flow Architecture

Here is how a complete interaction cycle looks in Bot Creator:

Beyond buttons and modals, Discord supports two other powerful interaction systems: Autocomplete and Context Menus. Bot Creator exposes these natively:

Autocomplete Interactions

When a user begins typing a slash command, your bot can provide dynamic completion choices. During this phase:

((interaction.kind)) resolves to autocomplete.
You can intercept the partial input and use custom BDFD logic to return instantaneous matching choices.

User & Message Context Menus

Context menus allow users to right-click a user or message and execute an application action (e.g., Apps > Report Message or Apps > User Info).

((interaction.command.type)) resolves to:
- 1 — Chat Input (standard slash command).
- 2 — User Context Menu (right-clicking a user profile).
- 3 — Message Context Menu (right-clicking a message bubble).
((interaction.command.name)) returns the name of the Apps option chosen.
((interaction.command.id)) returns the unique ID of the registered command.

6. Advanced Member & User Profile Enrichment

Whenever an interaction occurs, Bot Creator automatically enriches the context with high-fidelity attributes of the acting user and guild member:

Guild Member Attributes (`((member.*))`)

Available inside server environments:

((member.isBooster)) — Returns true or false indicating if the user is boosting the current server.
((member.communicationDisabledUntil)) — Returns the ISO8601 timeout date/time if the member is currently timed out by moderators (empty otherwise).
((member.roles)) — Comma-separated list of all role IDs assigned to the member.
((member.roles.count)) — The number of roles the member holds.
((member.avatar)) — Resolved webp member-specific avatar URL (supports animated GIFs).

Global User Profile Attributes (`((user.))` / `((author.))`)

Global user configurations:

((user.banner)) — URL of the user’s custom profile banner image.
((user.bannerColor)) — HEX color code of the profile banner (e.g. #ff00aa).
((user.createdAt)) — Exact ISO8601 timestamp of when the user account was created, calculated directly from the Snowflake ID.

7. Full Interactive Flow Architecture

Here is how a complete interaction cycle looks in Bot Creator:

sequenceDiagram
    participant User
    participant Discord as Discord Client
    participant Bot as Bot Creator Runner
    
    User->>Discord: Clicks 'Create Ticket' Button
    Discord->>Bot: Triggers interactionCreate (customId: ticket_btn)
    Note over Bot: parses interaction.kind (button)<br/>parses interaction.userId
    Bot->>Discord: Displays Ticket Modal Form (customId: modal_ticket_form)
    User->>Discord: Fills form & clicks Submit
    Discord->>Bot: Triggers interactionCreate (kind: modal, customId: modal_ticket_form)
    Note over Bot: extracts modal.ticket_title<br/>extracts modal.ticket_reason
    Bot->>Discord: Creates a private text channel & replies with ticket setup!

By leveraging this native, high-performance runtime system, your Bot Creator integrations remain lightning-fast and highly secure, without ever leaking variables into parent contexts!