Discord

Monitor server mentions, channel messages, and DMs sent to your bot. Reply directly from the notification card.

What a bot CAN and CANNOT see

A Discord bot is not the same as your personal account. It can only see:

• Messages in servers it has been invited to
• Messages in channels the bot has permission to view
• DMs that someone sends to the bot

A bot cannot read your personal DMs with other users. Monitoring your own DMs would require a user token (self-botting), which is against Discord's Terms of Service and can get your account permanently banned. Don't do it.

Quick Setup

1. Create the application

1. Go to discord.com/developers/applications
2. Click New Application → name it "Phyllax" → Create

2. Create the bot and copy its token

1. Go to Bot in the sidebar

2. Click Reset Token → copy the token (you'll only see it once)

3. Under Privileged Gateway Intents, enable only:

   • ✅ Message Content Intent (required — without this the bot sees message events but not the actual text)

   Do not enable Server Members or Presence intents — Phyllax doesn't use them, and enabling unused privileged intents is a Discord verification red flag if your bot ever grows past 100 members in any one server.

Large servers (>100 members)

Discord requires your bot to be verified before it can use Message Content Intent in servers with more than 100 members. Not an issue for personal or small servers.

3. Invite the bot to your server

The bot does nothing until it's joined a server. You must do this yourself for each server you want to monitor.

1. In the same Developer Portal, go to OAuth2 → URL Generator

2. Under Scopes, check bot

3. Under Bot Permissions, check these three (and only these — keep the permission surface minimal):

   • ✅ View Channels (required — without this the bot sees no channels)
   • ✅ Read Message History (required — to see messages that existed before the bot joined)
   • ✅ Send Messages (required if you want Phyllax to reply or post on your behalf — safe to skip if read-only)

   Don't tick Administrator, Manage Server, Manage Channels, or any other broad permission. The bot doesn't need them, and granting them is an attack-surface liability.

4. Copy the generated URL at the bottom of the page

5. Open it in your browser → pick the server from the dropdown → Authorize

6. You must have Manage Server permission on that server to add a bot

4. Connect in Phyllax

In Phyllax → Integrations → Discord → Connect → paste the bot token.

Channel visibility inside a server

Once invited, the bot automatically sees public channels in the server. For private channels, you also have to add the bot explicitly:

1. Right-click the private channel → Edit Channel → Permissions
2. Add the bot (or its role) and give it Read Messages and Read Message History

The bot only sees messages from the moment it joins onward, unless it has Read Message History.

Required Credentials

Field	Where to find it
Bot Token	discord.com/developers → Your App → Bot → Reset Token

What Phyllax Monitors

Schedule	What it checks	Works if
Server mentions	@mentions or replies to the bot in any server it's joined	Bot is in the server with Read Messages + Message Content Intent
Channel messages	Keyword-matched messages in a channel (e.g. customer questions, brand mentions)	Bot has Read Messages on that channel
Bot DMs	Messages users send directly to the bot	Users must share a server with the bot and start a DM with it

"Unread DMs" is not your personal DMs

If you created a schedule called "Unread DMs" expecting to see DMs between you and other humans — it won't work. See the warning at the top of this page. Bots can only see DMs addressed to them.

Notification Actions

When Discord finds something important, the notification card shows:

• Send — bot replies directly to the channel or DM (sends as the bot account)
• Reply via AI — open AI chat to draft a longer response
• Suggested replies — AI-generated tone options (Professional, Friendly, etc.)

Troubleshooting

401 Unauthorized

The token Discord is receiving doesn't match any active bot.

• The token was regenerated in the Developer Portal (old one is dead)
• It was accidentally committed to a public repo and Discord auto-revoked it
• It was copied with a trailing space or missing character

Fix: Developer Portal → Your App → Bot → Reset Token → paste the new value into Phyllax. Never commit tokens to git or paste them into project files.

Bot can't read message text

Enable Message Content Intent under Bot → Privileged Gateway Intents. Without this, the bot sees message events but not the actual content.

Bot isn't seeing messages in a server

1. Verify the bot is actually a member of that server (check the member list)
2. Verify the bot has Read Messages/View Channels on the specific channel
3. For private channels, explicitly add the bot in Channel Permissions
4. Verify Message Content Intent is enabled in the Developer Portal

Schedule always returns "CLEAR"

If you're monitoring DMs and the bot has no DM channels, the schedule will always be clear — this is expected, not a bug. Use Server mentions or Channel messages schedules instead.