# 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.

- Canonical: https://discordtools.blog/glossary/interaction
- Group: Development
- See also: https://discordtools.blog/glossary/slash-command, https://discordtools.blog/glossary/ephemeral-message
- Updated: 2026-08-31
- Publication: The Index, an independent site not affiliated with Discord Inc.

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The three-second rule is absolute. A bot that cannot finish the work in time must defer first,
which buys it fifteen minutes to reply — this is why some commands show "thinking" before
answering.

"This interaction failed" almost always means the bot did not acknowledge in time, not that the
command itself was wrong.