Tools

Which intents does your bot need?

Tick what it does. You get the switches to turn on in the Developer Portal and the code to ask for them.

Your bot…

Answers slash commands Reads messages for commands like !help, or reacts to what people say Replies to direct messages Welcomes new members, or gives roles when people join Sees who is online or what they are playing Joins voice channels (music, recording) Reaction roles, or anything that waits for a reaction

discord.py

discord.js

Intents number, for the raw gateway: 1

What intents are

When a bot connects, it tells Discord which kinds of events it wants: messages, members joining, reactions, voice. Those are its intents. Ask for too few and the bot silently never hears about something; ask for more than it uses and it does extra work for nothing.

The three privileged ones

Message Content, Server Members and Presence must also be switched on for your application in the Developer Portal, on the Bot page under Privileged Gateway Intents. If the code asks for one that is switched off there, the bot will not connect: discord.py stops with PrivilegedIntentsRequired, discord.js with Used disallowed intents. Once a bot is in 100 servers, Discord asks you to apply for each privileged intent it uses.

Message content, exactly

Without Message Content a bot still receives messages, with empty text, except direct messages, messages that mention the bot, and its own. A bot that only uses slash commands never needs it.