What Is the miku.gg Bot Directory and How Can I Use It?

The miku.gg bot directory is a shared catalog of chatbots that you can browse, try, and download without running anything on your own machine. It exists so you can test bots in the live demo or pull them into your own self-hosted instance, instead of building every bot from scratch. Use it when you want to explore what the platform can do or reuse a bot someone else already made; skip it if you only plan to create private bots and never share them.

What the directory is for

According to the miku.gg documentation, the bot directory lets you "share, download or try out bots without the need to run it locally." That single sentence covers the three things the directory does:

• Share — publish a bot you made so others can find it.
• Download — pull an existing bot into your own setup.
• Try — test a bot directly, with no local install.

The key constraint is the last part: trying a bot does not require you to run the platform yourself. That makes the directory the fastest way to see how emotion images, TTS, and API-backed responses behave before committing to a self-hosted deployment.

How to use it

The documentation does not spell out a click-by-click menu path, so treat the steps below as the general flow implied by the feature description rather than a literal UI walkthrough.

1. Open the live demo. The docs point to a "Beta demo" and a "Live demo" as the entry points for trying bots. Start there if you want to test without installing anything.
2. Browse the directory. Look for the bot directory section, where shared bots are listed.
3. Try a bot. Select one to run it in the demo environment. This is where you'll see its emotion images and hear its TTS voice if it has them configured.
4. Download a bot (optional). If you want to keep or modify it, use the download option to bring it into your own instance.
5. Share your own (optional). If you've built a bot, the directory is where you publish it for others.

Expected result: after step 3 you should be interacting with a working bot; after step 4 you should have the bot's files available locally.

Directory vs. self-hosting

These are not competing options — the directory feeds into self-hosting. The comparison below is about where you start.

If your goal is simply to see whether miku.gg fits your needs, start with the directory. If your goal is to run bots on your own terms, the directory is still useful as a source of ready-made bots you can download first.

What you can expect from bots in the directory

Because the directory hosts bots built on the same platform, the features described in the docs apply to them:

• Emotion images and TTS. Bots can show emotion through images and speak through TTS. Supported TTS providers listed in the docs are Azure TTS, NovelAI, and ElevenLabs. Emotion analysis runs on local SBERT embeddings.
• OpenAI-like API compatibility. Bots can be backed by Aphrodite, TextGen WebUI (ooba), or Tabby.

One practical caveat: whether a specific directory bot actually has emotion images or voice depends on how its author configured it. The platform supports these features; individual bots may not use them.

Common sticking points

• "Try" vs. "download" are different actions. Trying a bot in the demo doesn't give you its files. If you want to keep it, use the download option.
• The demo is labeled Beta. The docs call it a "Beta demo," so expect it to be the least stable part of the experience.
• Self-hosting still needs your own API setup. Downloading a bot doesn't provide the underlying model or API — you configure Aphrodite, TextGen WebUI, or Tabby on your side.

Where to go next

The documentation's own next step is the live demo. Open it, browse the directory, and try a bot before deciding whether to download the source and run your own. If you already know you want to self-host, download a bot from the directory first so you have something concrete to test your setup against.