Reference
Discord bot glossary
Every term you meet configuring a Discord bot, defined precisely — platform vocabulary, permission mechanics, moderation jargon and the category words vendors use differently from each other.
43 terms · last reviewed 31 August 2026
Platform
- Audit Log
- Discord’s built-in record of administrative actions in a server. It retains entries for 45 days, after which Discord’s own record of what happened is gone.
- Ephemeral Message
- A reply visible only to the member who triggered it. Ephemeral responses are not stored in channel history, cannot be linked, and disappear when the client reloads.
- Gateway
- The persistent WebSocket connection over which Discord pushes real-time events to a bot. Bots receive messages, joins and edits through the gateway rather than by polling.
- Guildalso server
- Discord’s internal name for what the client calls a server. The API, developer documentation and every bot library use "guild"; users only ever see "server".
- Intentalso gateway intent, privileged intent
- A subscription flag that tells Discord which categories of event a bot wants to receive. Three intents are privileged and require approval once a bot passes 100 servers.
- Message Content Intent
- The privileged intent required to read what a message actually says. Without it a bot receives the message event but an empty content field, except in DMs and for its own mentions.
- Permission Overwritealso channel override
- A per-channel rule that grants or denies a permission to one role or member, overriding the server-wide role permission for that channel only.
- Rate Limitalso 429, bucket
- Discord’s cap on how many REST requests a bot may make. Limits apply per route and major parameter — not per endpoint and not per application — so two channels have separate budgets.
- Role Hierarchy
- The vertical order of roles in server settings. No member — bot or human — can assign, remove or moderate a role positioned at or above their own highest role.
- Sharding
- Splitting a bot across multiple gateway connections, each handling a subset of guilds. Discord requires sharding once a bot passes roughly 2,500 guilds on a single connection.
- Snowflakealso Discord ID, object ID
- A Discord ID: a 64-bit integer that encodes the millisecond timestamp at which the object was created, so an account or message age can be read from the ID itself.
- Webhook
- A URL that accepts a POST and posts the result as a message in one specific channel. Webhooks need no bot token and no gateway connection, and can set a per-message name and avatar.
Moderation
- AI Moderation
- Moderation that judges intent and context rather than matching keywords — catching harassment phrased without a banned word, and ignoring a banned word used harmlessly.
- Anti-Nuke
- Protection against destruction by someone who already has permissions — mass channel deletion, mass bans, or handing dangerous permissions to a role. The attacker is inside, so rate-limiting joins does nothing.
- Anti-Raid
- Protection against a flood of accounts joining at once. Anti-raid watches the join rate and locks the door — a different problem from filtering messages, and one Discord’s own tools do not address.
- AutoModalso Discord AutoMod
- Discord’s built-in content filter, which inspects messages at the platform level before delivery. It is faster than any bot, harder to evade, and free — but it only inspects content.
- Loggingalso audit logging, log events
- A bot’s own record of what happened in a server — message edits and deletions, joins and leaves, role and channel changes, moderation actions — kept beyond Discord’s 45-day audit-log window.
- Moderation Casealso infraction, warn history
- A numbered record of one moderation action against one member, with reason, moderator and timestamp — queryable later so staff can see prior history before acting.
- Timeoutalso communication disabled
- A native Discord punishment that blocks a member from sending messages, reacting or speaking for up to 28 days. Unlike a mute role it survives rejoining and needs no channel overwrites.
- Verification Gate
- A barrier between joining and participating — a captcha, a reaction, a rules agreement or a waiting period — intended to filter out automated and drive-by accounts.
Engagement
- Battle Pass
- A seasonal progression track with tiered rewards, borrowed from games. Members complete objectives over a season to unlock rewards, then the track resets.
- Economy Bot
- A bot with a virtual currency members earn and spend — on roles, items or games. Distinct from levelling in that the currency is spendable and can move between members.
- Giveaway Bot
- A bot that runs timed prize draws with entry requirements — required roles, minimum account age, minimum level — and picks winners with a reroll option.
- Leaderboard
- A ranked list of members by XP, messages or another activity metric, usually available as a command and a web page. The visible half of a levelling system.
- Levellingalso XP, ranking, leveling
- Awarding members experience points for activity and granting roles at thresholds. The most common engagement system on Discord, and one several major bots place behind a paywall.
- Onboarding
- Discord’s native first-run flow, where a joining member picks interests and gets channels and roles accordingly. Available to Community-enabled servers at no cost.
- Starboard
- A channel that automatically reposts messages once they pass a reaction threshold, creating a community-curated highlights feed.
- Streaks
- A count of consecutive days a member has been active, usually with rewards at milestones and a reminder before the streak breaks.
- Welcome Message
- An automated greeting when a member joins — in a channel, a DM, or both — usually with an image card, the member count, and a pointer to where to start.
Roles
- Reaction Roles
- A message where adding a reaction, or clicking a button, grants a role. The standard self-service way members pick colours, pronouns, ping preferences and channel access.
- Self-Rolesalso auto roles, sticky roles
- Roles members assign to themselves, plus the automatic variants: auto-roles granted on join, sticky roles that return after a rejoin, and delayed roles granted after a waiting period.
Support
- Application Systemalso staff applications, forms
- A structured form members submit in Discord — typically for staff recruitment, whitelist access or event signup — with a review queue for staff rather than a channel full of freeform posts.
- Ticket Systemalso modmail, support tickets
- A private channel or thread opened on request so a member can talk to staff away from public channels. The standard way Discord servers handle support, appeals and reports.
Utility
- Auto-Responder
- A trigger-and-reply rule: when a message matches a keyword or pattern, the bot posts a set response. Used for FAQs, support deflection and in-jokes.
- Sticky Message
- A message a bot re-posts to keep it at the bottom of a channel whenever it scrolls out of view — used for channel rules, formats and current status.
- Temporary Voice Channelalso voice hub, join-to-create
- A channel that creates a private voice room when a member joins it, then deletes the room when the last person leaves. Keeps the channel list short without limiting concurrent conversations.
Development
- Embed
- Discord’s structured rich-message format — a bordered block with a title, description, fields, colour, images and a footer. The standard way bots present formatted output.
- Interaction
- Discord’s event for a user invoking a bot — a slash command, button click, select-menu choice or modal submission. Every interaction must be acknowledged within three seconds.
- Public API
- A REST interface a bot vendor exposes so third parties can read and write its data. Rare among Discord bots — most expose nothing, and several that do bind a token to one guild.
- Slash Commandalso application command
- A command registered with Discord and invoked with a leading slash. Discord provides the autocomplete, argument types and permission checks, replacing the old prefix-parsing approach.
Product
- All-in-One Bot
- A Discord bot covering many unrelated systems — moderation, levelling, tickets, welcomes, giveaways, roles — in one product, instead of doing one job and leaving the rest to other bots.
- Custom Botalso white-label bot
- Running a platform’s feature set under your own bot name, avatar and application, so the bot in your member list is branded as yours rather than the vendor’s.
- Vito
- Vetox’s economy and member-account system — a currency, transactions and a public API. Vito never converts to or from real money in either direction.