This is a small shell script and systemd service that automatically check for discord updates in the background. It updates Discord by editing /usr/share/discord/resources/build_info.json to the most recent version number - the content of the updates are installed by Discord itself when launched.

Currently, this has only been tested with the debian-based Discord package. It may work with the .rpm installer as well - let me know if you try it. Update the appropriate environment variables in update-discord.sh.

Setup

Run this from inside the Git repo:

# move the script to a system location and make it executable
sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/bin
sudo cp ./update-discord.sh /usr/local/bin/update-discord
sudo chmod 755 /usr/local/bin/update-discord

# create the systemd service
sudo cp ./update-discord.service /etc/systemd/system/update-discord.service

# create the systemd timer
sudo cp ./update-discord.timer /etc/systemd/system/update-discord.timer

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable --now update-discord.timer

You can manually test it too:

# check schedule
systemctl list-timers | grep discord

# manually trigger and check logs
sudo systemctl start update-discord.service
journalctl -u update-discord.service