Devlog 6 - command buffet

time logged: 6hr 37m 19s
date: 22/07/2026

okay since most of the major architectural refactors are done, i can finally focus on adding more commands to Slackzilla. this devlog is about the new commands that i added to the bot, which are mostly utility commands that can be used for various purposes.

• base64 encoding
• hashing - supports multiple algorithms, default: sha256
• decoder - decodes every algorithm that hashing supports
• random ids(uuid)
• secure tokens
• random numbers
• unix date conversion
• text case conversion (camel, pascal, snake, kebab)
• character counter
• rock paper scissors
• magic 8ball (the only entertainment command added in this devlog)

the trickier parts were the input parsers. hash has to decide whether the first word is an algorithm or part of the text, case needs to split words without mangling the content too much, and unix has to switch between timestamps and readable dates without getting confused by weird inputs. i also added guardrails for invalid ranges and missing text so the bot gives a useful reply instead of just silently failing.

the fun commands were the easiest win. 8ball just picks from a response list, and rps does a quick match against the player choice and the bot choice to decide whether it was a win, lose, or tie. it is very low stakes code, which is honestly refreshing after the manifest workflow stuff from last time.

all utilities commands all have a help command associated to it

the current utilities commands include:

• /sz-base64 - encodes a string to base64
• /sz-hash - generates a hash of a string, default: sha256
• /sz-decode - decodes a base64 encoded string
• /sz-uuid - generates a random uuid
• /sz-token - generates a random secure token
• /sz-random - generates a random number in a given range
• /sz-unix - converts a unix timestamp to a human-readable date and vice versa
• /sz-case - converts a string to camelCase, PascalCase, snake_case, or kebab-case
• /sz-count - counts the number of characters in a string
• /sz-rps - plays rock paper scissors with the bot
• /sz-calc - evaluates mathematical expression

so all of it has a 2nd argument for help, so for example /sz-hash help will show the usage and examples of the command.

i also added on package.json, 2 new scripts

    "validate-commands": "ajv validate -s schemas/command.schema.json -d src/data/commands.json",
    "cmd-stats": "node scripts/stats.js"

one to validate the commands.json file against the command.schema.json file, and another to provide statistics about the number of commands in the commands.json file. this will help me keep track of how many commands are in the bot and also make sure that the commands.json file is valid before a pull request is merged.

currently, the bot has 22 commands in total, and 11 of them are utility commands (10 of them got added into this devlog (excluding the /sz-8ball that also was added in this devlog, but is an entertainment command)). the other 11 commands are the ones that were already in the bot before this devlog.

i need some feedback on what other commands i should add to the bot, so if you have any ideas, please let me know. (im running out of ideas *sighs*)

im also planning on adding a web dashboard to the bot, which will allow users to see the bot’s status, logs, and other information in a more user-friendly way. this will be a big change, so stay tuned for that in the next devlog

TL;DR: added a bunch of new slash commands for Slackzilla, kept the implementations small and native where possible, and tightened up the input handling so the new tools fail a little more gracefully.