# Using Audit Logs

From time to time, users in "An Idiot's Guide Official Server" need to reference audit logs for whatever reason, let it be viewing them for certain actions to adding things into the audit logs. This guide will explain everything about audit logs and how to use them.

The first thing that you will need is a working Discord Bot. If you do not have one, please visit Your First Bot to get started. Now, some things to take note of. This guide is using discord.js. The bot will need some permissions. The main permission the bot will need is 'VIEW_AUDIT_LOGS'. This permission allows the bot to view the audit logs.

Now that the permission has been established. Lets get started!

Firstly, we need to know what we are doing with the audit logs. Let's log who deleted a message using the messageDelete event. This event will fire whenever a cached message is deleted in a server.

const { Permissions } = require("discord.js");

client.on("messageDelete", async (message) => {
  // Firstly, we need a logs channel. 
  let logs = message.guild.channels.cache.find(channel => channel.name === "logs");

  // If there is no logs channel, we can create it if we have the 'MANAGE_CHANNELS' permission
  // Remember, this is completely options. Use to your best judgement.
  if (message.guild.me.permissions.has(Permissions.FLAGS.MANAGE_CHANNELS) && !logs) {
    logs = await message.guild.channels.create("logs", { type: "GUILD_TEXT" }).catch(console.error);
  }

  // If we do not have permissions, console log both errors
  if (!logs) { 
    return console.log("The logs channel does not exist and cannot be created");
  }

  /*
  Lets establish who deleted the message. This is the actual audit logs part, yay!
  The "type" is how you will be searching through the audit logs, like role 
  updates or members banned. A complete list of types can be found at the end of this page.
  Keep in mind the following line uses some advanced async/await promise manipulation. 
  Explaining exactly how this works is beyond the scope of this guide.
  */
  const entry = await message.guild.fetchAuditLogs({ type: "MESSAGE_DELETE" }).then(audit => audit.entries.first())

  // Define an empty user for now. This will be used later in the guide.
  let user;

})

This is what is returned from entry. This information allows us to compare the time stamp, the user, the channel, and the executor.

GuildAuditLogsEntry {
  targetType: 'MESSAGE',
  actionType: 'DELETE',
  action: 'MESSAGE_DELETE',
  reason: null,
  executor: [Object],
  changes: null,
  id: '434116792567201792',
  extra: [Object],
  target: [Object] }

Notice the reason field. Some audit logs, like kicking and banning, can provide a reason. You can probably make the bot log when a user is banned and for whatever reason. What we want is the executor of the action. We do that by going to the executor target as that is where the user is stored. Below is showing what the information that the executor property provides us:

User {
  id: '286270602820452353',
  username: 'Zoth The Wumpus',
  discriminator: '6066',
  avatar: '57361ef0f8e23e02a44069c3dd5f5f47',
  bot: false,
  lastMessageID: '435165896198062091',
  lastMessage: [Object] }

With all the information above, we can start creating comparisons to narrow down on who really deleted the message, whether it was the author of the message or someone else.

// Please keep in mind: Discord's audit logs will not log the information if the author of that message deleted it.
// I did this with a series of checks:
​ 
//we defined entry above, so we can use it here to check the channel id
if (entry.extra.channel.id === message.channel.id
​ 
//Then we are checking if the target is the same as the author id
&& (entry.target.id === message.author.id)
​ 
// We are comparing time as audit logs are sometimes slow. 
&& (entry.createdTimestamp > (Date.now() - 5000)

// We want to check the count as audit logs stores the amount deleted in a channel
&& entry.extra.count >= 1) {
  user = entry.executor.username
}

else { 
  // When all else fails, we can assume that the author has deleted their message.
  user = message.author.username
}

Let's take a break to explain exactly whats going on in the above code block. The Date.now() is getting the current time (in milliseconds). We want to take away 5 seconds for the potential delay in the audit logs. The entry will be retrieving the very latest audit log entry and all of its information that goes with it. What does this information contain? Everything we need for logging. With all the given information above, let's start sending it all to a channel.

  // We defined the logs channel earlier in this guide, so now we can send it to the channel!
  logs.send(`A message was deleted in ${message.channel.name} by ${user}`;);

The final code should look like this:

const { Permissions } = require('discord.js');

client.on("messageDelete", async (message) => {
  const logs = message.guild.channels.cache.find(channel => channel.name === "logs");
  if (message.guild.me.permissions.has(Permissions.FLAGS.MANAGE_CHANNELS) && !logs) {
    message.guild.channels.create("logs", { type: "GUILD_TEXT" });
  }
  if (!message.guild.me.permissions.has(Permissions.FLAGS.MANAGE_CHANNELS) && !logs) { 
    console.log("The logs channel does not exist and tried to create the channel but I am lacking permissions")
  }  
  const entry = await message.guild.fetchAuditLogs({ type: "MESSAGE_DELETE" }).then(audit => audit.entries.first())
  let user = ""
    if (entry.extra.channel.id === message.channel.id
      && (entry.target.id === message.author.id)
      && (entry.createdTimestamp > (Date.now() - 5000))
      && (entry.extra.count >= 1)) {
    user = entry.executor.username
  }

  else { 
    user = message.author.username
  }
  logs.send(`A message was deleted in ${message.channel.name} by ${user}`);
})

And there you have it. Thats how you can view audit logs as most of them, if not all, of them work the same.

Types of Audit Logs:

ALL: null
GUILD_UPDATE: 1
CHANNEL_CREATE: 10
CHANNEL_UPDATE: 11
CHANNEL_DELETE: 12
CHANNEL_OVERWRITE_CREATE: 13
CHANNEL_OVERWRITE_UPDATE: 14
CHANNEL_OVERWRITE_DELETE: 15
MEMBER_KICK: 20
MEMBER_PRUNE: 21
MEMBER_BAN_ADD: 22
MEMBER_BAN_REMOVE: 23
MEMBER_UPDATE: 24
MEMBER_ROLE_UPDATE: 25
MEMBER_MOVE: 26
MEMBER_DISCONNECT: 27
BOT_ADD: 28
ROLE_CREATE: 30
ROLE_UPDATE: 31
ROLE_DELETE: 32
INVITE_CREATE: 40
INVITE_UPDATE: 41
INVITE_DELETE: 42
WEBHOOK_CREATE: 50
WEBHOOK_UPDATE: 51
WEBHOOK_DELETE: 52
EMOJI_CREATE: 60
EMOJI_UPDATE: 61
EMOJI_DELETE: 62
MESSAGE_DELETE: 72
MESSAGE_BULK_DELETE: 73
MESSAGE_PIN: 74
MESSAGE_UNPIN: 75
INTEGRATION_CREATE: 80
INTEGRATION_UPDATE: 81
INTEGRATION_DELETE: 82

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