Discord standup bot: daily check-ins with /checkin and one report every evening

Published · Updated

If your team works in Discord, the simplest way to run a daily standup without a call is a bot that asks each person once a day and collects the answers for you. Eodly does that with one slash command, /checkin, and then goes a step further: it puts every update next to the actual work in GitHub and Linear and sends you one report in the evening. It is free for up to 5 people, with no card.

How a daily standup runs in Discord with Eodly

  1. Add the Eodly bot to your server. On your Eodly dashboard, click Connect Discord and pick the server. The bot asks for two permissions only, View Channels and Send Messages, and connecting registers the /checkin command in that server.
  2. Each person runs /checkin once in the server. That links their Discord account to your team. From then on they can check in from the server or from a direct message with the bot.
  3. Every morning at 9:00, the bot sends each person a DM asking for a quick update: what they finished or moved forward, anything blocking them, and what they are picking up next. The 9:00 follows each person's own time zone, which you set per person on the Team page. They answer with /checkin, and the confirmation is visible only to them, so your channels do not fill up with status messages.
  4. Anyone who has not checked in gets one reminder, 45 minutes before your report time. Nobody has to chase anyone.
  5. In the evening you get one report, at the time you choose (7 PM by default), on your dashboard and by email. If you also connect Slack or Telegram, it can reach you there.

Your team never creates an Eodly account and never opens a dashboard. /checkin is the whole interaction for them.

What the evening report shows

A plain standup bot repeats what people type. Eodly weighs each update against your systems of record, GitHub and Linear, and sorts the day into a few short sections:

  • What got done, each claim next to its merged pull request or moved ticket.
  • Working but quiet, people with activity in GitHub or Linear who did not check in. Their work still counts.
  • Silent, no check-in and no activity.
  • Needs a look, where an update says one thing and the work says another, shown side by side for you to judge.

You read the few things that need you instead of scrolling a channel of "all good" messages.

A #standup channel or a bot?

Plenty of Discord teams run their standup as a #standup channel where everyone posts in the morning. For a small team that posts reliably, that is enough, and you do not need another tool.

A bot earns its place when the channel stops working: people forget and somebody has to ping them, the channel turns into a wall of text nobody reads, or an update says "almost done" for the fourth day running and you cannot tell whether anything moved. Reminders fix the first problem, a summary fixes the second, and only checking updates against the work fixes the third.

Does the bot read our server?

No. Eodly's Discord bot works only through the /checkin command and the direct messages it sends. It does not connect to Discord's gateway and does not read your channels: the only text it receives is what someone sends with /checkin. There is no keystroke logging, screen capture or time tracking.

Discord standup bots compared

If you are choosing between bots, our dated comparison covers the Discord standup bots people actually use, with prices and free tiers checked on each vendor's own site: best standup bots for Discord.

Pricing

The Free plan covers up to 5 teammates, with Discord, Slack and Telegram all included, plus GitHub and Linear. The Team plan is $29 a month for up to 10 teammates. See pricing for every plan.

Questions people ask

Do my teammates need to install anything? No. Once the bot is in your server, they use /checkin like any other slash command.

Can part of my team check in from Slack or Telegram instead? Yes. Each person checks in wherever they already work, and you still get one combined report.

What if someone has DMs from server members turned off? The bot cannot message them first, but they can still check in with /checkin in the server.

Does it work without GitHub or Linear? Yes. The check-ins and reminders work on their own. Connecting GitHub or Linear is what lets the report show the work behind each update.

Add Eodly to your Discord server

Related reading