# 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.

- Canonical: https://discordtools.blog/glossary/intent
- Group: Platform
- Also called: gateway intent, privileged intent
- See also: https://discordtools.blog/glossary/gateway, https://discordtools.blog/glossary/message-content-intent
- Updated: 2026-08-31
- Publication: The Index, an independent site not affiliated with Discord Inc.

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Intents exist so Discord does not send every bot every event. A bot that has not requested
`GUILD_MEMBERS` will not see joins, however correct its code is.

The three privileged intents are **message content**, **guild members** and **presence**.
Below 100 servers a developer can enable them freely; above it, Discord must approve the use
case. This is the single most common reason a self-hosted bot works in testing and fails at
scale.