p4bot — Perforce→Discord Automation Toolkit

What is this game?

A self-hosted automation toolkit that connects Perforce with Discord using the Perforce CLI, Python, PowerShell, and Windows Task Scheduler. It was built to reduce manual “who has this file?” overhead and make exclusive-lock workflows less painful for our Unreal Engine project.

Team Info

• Role: Solo Developer
• Team: Used by a 6-person Triad of Valor team
• Engine/Tools: Python, PowerShell, Perforce CLI, Windows Task Scheduler, Discord Bot API

Contributions

• Built a Perforce→Discord automation toolkit composed of a submit poller, an opened-file watcher, and a /canwork slash command so teammates can see recent changelists and who has which files checked out without leaving Discord.
• Integrated with the Perforce CLI, Python, PowerShell, and Windows Task Scheduler so the toolkit can run unattended in the background on a self-hosted Windows machine.
• Cut manual lock-check and “who has this file?” overhead from roughly 70–90 seconds (and sometimes several minutes) to a 1–3 second Discord glance, saving our 6-person team about 10–20 minutes per day over the term.
• Designed a centralized JSON config so other teams can reuse or adapt the toolkit without hard-coded paths or secrets.

Challenges & Solutions

• In an exclusive-lock Perforce setup, artists and designers frequently blocked each other because file activity was invisible until someone manually checked the Perforce client.
• Needed an automation solution that was reliable but simple enough to host on a student Windows machine without admin access or external services.

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