Creating Your First Presence

Create a new Nowly presence with the CLI and send your first Discord Rich Presence activity.

Start With the CLI

Use the Nowly CLI to scaffold a new presence:

nowly init "Example"

The CLI creates metadata, a presence script, and required assets.

Basic Presence Code

Presence and Assets are provided by the runtime — see Presence API and Assets. document is the standard browser DOM API, available because presences run as content scripts in the extension.

Only PresenceType (and other helpers like createMediaTimestamps) must be imported from @nowly/sdk.

import { PresenceType } from "@nowly/sdk"

const presence = new Presence()

presence.on("UpdateData", async () => {
  await presence.setActivity({
    details: document.title,
    state: document.location.hostname,
    largeImageKey: Assets.Logo,
    type: PresenceType.Watching,
  })
})

Runtime Flow

When the user visits a matching URL, Nowly loads your presence. The presence reads page state and calls setActivity. The extension forwards that payload to Nowly Host, which updates Discord.

Development Loop

1

Scaffold

Generate the presence folder, metadata, and required assets.

nowly init "Example"
2

Configure

Set the name, author, supported URLs, category, color, and localized descriptions.

Edit metadata.json — see Metadata for all available fields.

3

Implement

Write the presence logic using the Presence SDK.

import { PresenceType } from "@nowly/sdk"

const presence = new Presence()

presence.on("UpdateData", async () => {
  await presence.setActivity({
    details: document.title,
    largeImageKey: Assets.Logo,
    type: PresenceType.Watching,
  })
})
4

Validate

Check that your metadata structure is correct and assets are in place.

nowly validate
5

Build

Compile the presence into a standalone bundle.

nowly build example
6

Load

Install the built presence in the browser. Two methods: a pre-built extension, or a zip drop.

See Load and Test Locally for the full comparison.

First time (no Nowly in the browser): bake the presence into a ready-made extension.

nowly extension example

Load dist/extension-dev unpacked at chrome://extensions.

Already have Nowly loaded unpacked: pack a zip and drop it in Settings → Advanced → Debug. Store installs reject unsigned zips.

nowly pack example
7

Test

Open the target website — the presence activates automatically.

Visit the site

Repeat Implement → Build → Load after each code change.

Edit on GitHub