Discord Bot Integration: Permissions, Intents, and Guild Setup

Creating Your Discord Bot

Step 1: Discord Developer Portal

Go to Discord Developer Portal

Click "New Application"

Name your application and create it

Go to the "Bot" section

Click "Add Bot"

Step 2: Enable Required Intents

Critical: Under "Privileged Gateway Intents", enable:

✅ MESSAGE CONTENT INTENT (required for reading messages)

✅ SERVER MEMBERS INTENT (for member events)

✅ PRESENCE INTENT (optional)

Without Message Content Intent, your bot cannot see message text!

Step 3: Generate Invite URL

Go to "OAuth2" → "URL Generator"

Select scopes:

- bot
- applications.commands

Select bot permissions:

- Send Messages
- Read Message History
- Add Reactions
- Attach Files
- Embed Links

Copy the generated URL and open it to invite the bot

Step 4: Configure OpenClaw

openclaw config set channels.discord.token "YOUR_BOT_TOKEN"

Guild (Server) Configuration

Allow Specific Guilds

{
  "channels": {
    "discord": {
      "enabled": true,
      "guilds": {
        "123456789": {
          "channels": ["*"],
          "requireMention": true
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Disable Mention Requirement

To let the bot respond without being mentioned:

{
  "guilds": {
    "123456789": {
      "requireMention": false
    }
  }
}

Note: requireMention must be under the guild config, not at the channel level.

Common Errors

"Used disallowed intents"

Cause: Message Content Intent not enabled in Developer Portal.

Fix: Go to Bot settings → Enable "MESSAGE CONTENT INTENT"

Bot Online but Not Responding

Check:

Bot has "Read Messages" permission in the channel

Guild ID is correctly configured

Intent is enabled for message content

requireMention is correctly placed in config

Channel Not in Allowlist

If using specific channel IDs:

{
  "guilds": {
    "123456789": {
      "channels": ["987654321", "456789123"]
    }
  }
}

Need Help?

Discord setup can be tricky. Contact us for expert configuration.