DeadLink – 7 Days to Die Server Companion

DeadLink is a modern 7 Days to Die Server Companion that integrates your server with Discord. It provides a clean dashboard, real‑time analytics, horde‑night context, and safe server actions—purpose‑built for running and showcasing your world. Docker‑friendly, secure by default, and tuned for smooth screenshot and admin workflows.

Highlights

• Fully rewritten, dashboard‑first GUI (buttons, selects) — fast, clean, slash‑only
• Update system: check releases, view notes, and optionally announce to a channel
• Persistent, structured logs (rotating) with startup summary and clear levels
• Reliable telnet pipeline (queued, timed, reconnecting) with scoped actions
• Analytics: player trends, clusters, MVP, deep‑dive stats (session, distance, streaks)
• Interactive dashboard: Activity (brief default with Details), Players (list + deep dive picker), Trends, Info — all with consistent navigation
• Player stats and trends: ping quality, distance traveled, session length, deathless streaks, clusters, and time‑series patterns
• Jest smoke and unit tests for quick validation

Note: PNG trend charts and config validation are optional features. They are listed as optionalDependencies and will install on supported systems; if they fail to build, you can install them manually: npm i chartjs-node-canvas chart.js canvas zod

DeadLink runs as a separate companion via telnet—no game mods required. Supports Windows and Linux dedicated servers; console servers aren’t supported.

Key Features

• Daily Activity Reports — automatic summaries of joins, leaves, deaths, chat, and events to Discord
• Channel-Specific Routing — route different message types to dedicated channels (announcements, game events, bot commands)
• Horde Night Alerts — polite, rate‑limited Blood Moon warnings with cool‑downs and context
• Player & Server Trends — history, peaks, and patterns; optional PNG charts when available
• Interactive Dashboard — buttons for Activity, Players, Trends, and Info; brief‑by‑default with Details toggle
• Player Deep Dive — per‑player stats (ping, distance, session, streaks, last seen)
• Safe Server Controls — scoped actions (no raw telnet spam) for a safer ops workflow
• Logs & Updates — rotating structured logs; release checks and optional announcement posts

DeadLink — 7 Days to Die Server Companion

DeadLink is a lightweight, dashboard-first Discord companion for 7 Days to Die servers. It connects to a server's telnet interface, summarizes activity, provides player analytics, issues polite Blood Moon alerts, and exposes a small interactive dashboard via Discord slash commands.

This repository is a maintained fork with added analytics, a modern dashboard UI, test coverage, and improved lifecycle/logging utilities.

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Quick start

Requirements

• Node.js (LTS, tested on 18/20/22)
• A Discord bot application (bot token + client ID)
• Telnet enabled on the target 7 Days to Die dedicated server

Install & run (local development)

# Install deps
npm install

# Provide secrets via environment (recommended) and start
$env:DISCORD_TOKEN = "<your-bot-token>"
$env:TELNET_IP = "127.0.0.1"
$env:TELNET_PORT = "8081"
$env:TELNET_PASSWORD = "changeme"
node index.js

For demos or screenshots, set DEV_MODE=true to enable the simulated telnet/demo server.

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Key features

• Interactive dashboard via slash commands (/dashboard, /activity, /players, /trends, /info, /update)
• Player analytics and trends (session lengths, distances, streaks)
• Polite Blood Moon alerts with rate limiting and context
• Safe telnet pipeline with queued commands, timeouts, and reconnection logic
• Rotating structured logs and an updates checker (optional announcements)
• Test suite (Jest) and small telemetry tooling for local validation

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Configuration

Primary configuration lives in config.json (rename from config.example.json), but the app prefers environment variables for secrets.

Important environment variables

• DISCORD_TOKEN — bot token (required for live mode)
• DISCORD_CLIENT_ID — Application (Client) ID (for registering slash commands)
• DISCORD_GUILD_ID — optional; register slash commands to one guild for instant availability
• TELNET_IP, TELNET_PORT, TELNET_PASSWORD — telnet connection details
• DEV_MODE — true to run the demo/telnet simulator (good for screenshots/tests)

Relevant config sections in config.json

• channel — primary Discord channel ID (required for basic operation)
• announceChannel — optional channel ID for version updates, daily reports, and blood moon notifications
• gameChannel — optional channel ID for player join/part/death messages and in-game chat
• botChannel — optional channel ID to restrict bot command interactions
• bloodMoon — monitor options (enabled, poll interval, frequency)
• updates — release-checking and announcement options (enabled, intervalHours, prerelease, notifyMode, notifyChannel)

See lib/configSchema.js for the complete schema and defaults.

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Scripts

Available npm scripts (run with npm run <script>):

• start — run the app (node index.js)
• test — run Jest tests
• smoke:e2e — run end-to-end smoke script
• slash:global / slash:guild — register slash commands globally or to a guild
• telemetry:* — telemetry helper scripts (serve/send/flush/report)
• snapshots* — snapshot embeds and animations (for visual tests)

Check package.json for the full list and exact usage examples.

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Development notes

• New helper modules live in lib/ (examples: lib/log-utils.js, lib/lifecycle.js, lib/fs-utils.js, lib/telemetry.js).
• The app uses a lifecycle registry to clean up timers and servers to avoid leaked handles in tests.
• Optional PNG charts require canvas / chartjs-node-canvas and are listed as optional dependencies; the code falls back gracefully if unavailable.

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Testing

Run the full test suite locally:

npm test

For verbose JSON output suitable for CI or local inspection:

npm run test:json

If you see Jest warnings about open handles, run with --detectOpenHandles to diagnose them.

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Releases & publishing

• Create a RELEASE_NOTES_vX.Y.Z.md file for the tag you will push.
• Bump package.json and version.json as needed.
• Tag the commit (git tag -a vX.Y.Z -m 'vX.Y.Z') and push tags.
• GitHub Actions will build and publish releases on tag push (or run the manual release workflow if needed).

To create or edit releases locally using the GitHub CLI (if installed):

& 'C:\Program Files (x86)\GitHub CLI\gh.exe' release create vX.Y.Z --title 'vX.Y.Z' --notes-file 'RELEASE_NOTES_vX.Y.Z.md' --repo thecdrz/DeadLink

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Docs & website

Docs live under docs/ and are used by the GitHub Pages site. If the site looks broken, ensure docs/styles.css exists and that the docs/index.html links are correct (we fixed the stylesheet path in recent changes). The changelog page attempts to fetch RELEASE_NOTES_v<version>.md from the master branch; ensure version.json points to the intended lastAnnouncedVersion.

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Security

• Never commit config.json with secrets. Keep tokens and passwords in environment variables.
• allow-exec-command and similar options that execute telnet actions should be used with caution; they may allow powerful operations if misconfigured.

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License & credits

MIT — this project builds on Dishorde by LakeYS with substantial enhancements by CDRZ.

Project: https://github.com/thecdrz/DeadLink Original: https://github.com/LakeYS/Dishorde

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If you'd like a shorter README (or a separate CONTRIBUTING / MAINTAINER guide), say which sections to trim and I'll update accordingly.

• log-telnet - All output from the connection will show up in the terminal.