How to Add a Bot to a Discord Server
The install is thirty seconds. The permissions screen is the part worth reading.
Find the bot's invite link, usually on its own website or on a bot listing site. Open it, choose your server from the dropdown, review the permissions, and authorize.
You need the Manage Server permission on that server, which in practice means being the owner or an administrator. The dropdown only lists servers where you have it.
The bot appears in the member list immediately and is usually ready to use. Most have a help command and a configuration step.
The screen worth reading is the permissions list, because almost nobody does and that is where the problems start.
The permissions screen is the whole security story of Discord bots, and it is designed to be skipped.
When you authorize, the bot requests a set of permissions and the dialog lists them with checkboxes. Most are pre-ticked. You can untick the ones a bot does not need, and the bot is added with whatever remains.
Two requests deserve a pause every time. Administrator grants everything, bypasses every channel restriction, and makes the bot as powerful as the server owner — a compromised bot with Administrator can delete the server. Almost no bot needs it, and many request it anyway because it saves their developer from working out which permissions they actually require.
Manage Server and Manage Roles are the other two. A bot with Manage Roles can grant roles, including roles above the ones it was given, in some configurations.
The practical rule: if a music bot asks for Administrator, refuse and find another. If a moderation bot asks for Ban Members, that is what it is for. Match the permission to the job.
The second defense is role position. A bot can only act on roles below its own in the hierarchy, so placing the bot's role above the roles it manages and below your staff roles limits the damage from anything going wrong. This is in Server Settings under Roles, and dragging the bot's role to the right height is the single most useful minute you can spend after installing one.
Finding a bot worth adding
Bot listing sites index them by category with server counts and reviews. The server count is the most useful signal — a bot in hundreds of thousands of servers has been looked at by a lot of people.
Check when it was last updated. Discord's API changes, and an abandoned bot stops working rather than failing loudly.
Prefer bots with their own website and documentation over ones that exist only as a listing.
And be wary of any bot promising something Discord does not allow — selfbots, mass DMs, view inflation. Those break Discord's terms and the server hosting them is at risk, not just the bot.
The authorization flow
Click the invite or Add to Server link. Discord's own OAuth page opens — check that the domain is discord.com before entering anything.
Choose the server from the dropdown. Only servers where you hold Manage Server appear.
Review the permissions. Untick anything that does not match what the bot does.
Complete the captcha and confirm. The bot joins immediately and appears in the member list with a BOT tag.
Setting it up afterwards
Most bots respond to a help command, either a slash command or a prefix like an exclamation mark.
Slash commands are the modern approach and appear automatically in the message box when you type a slash. If a bot's commands do not appear, it may need the applications.commands scope, which is part of the authorization — re-inviting with the correct link fixes it.
Many bots have a web dashboard where configuration is easier than through chat.
Give the bot a dedicated channel for its noisier output. Moderation logs and music queues in a general channel are the fastest way to make a server unpleasant.
Removing a bot
A bot is a member. Right-click it in the member list and kick it, exactly as you would a person.
Kicking removes it from the server but leaves any roles or channels it created. Those have to be cleaned up separately.
If the bot had a dashboard, also remove the server there, or it may retain data.
To stop it rejoining, ban it rather than kicking. Bots cannot rejoin on their own, but a member with Manage Server could re-add it by accident.
Why bots matter to a server that is still small
The useful ones solve the two problems every growing server has.
The first is moderation at a volume humans cannot cover. An auto-moderation bot handling spam, invite links and raid detection does work nobody has to be awake for, and a server that gets raided once without one usually does not recover its membership.
The second is giving people something to do. Leveling, roles-on-reaction, and starboards create reasons to participate, and participation is what keeps a server from going quiet.
Neither solves the first problem, which is arrival. A server with excellent bots and four members is still a server with four members, and bots cannot generate the one thing a new community actually needs.
Questions people ask about adding Discord bots
What permission do I need to add a bot?
Manage Server. The server dropdown on the authorization page only lists servers where you have it, which usually means owner or administrator.
Should I give a bot Administrator?
Almost never. Administrator bypasses every restriction and a compromised bot with it can delete the server. Match permissions to what the bot actually does.
Why are the bot's slash commands not appearing?
It was likely added without the applications.commands scope. Re-inviting with the bot's correct link fixes it.
How do I remove a bot?
Right-click it in the member list and kick it, like any member. Ban it if you want to prevent it being re-added by accident.
How do I know a bot is safe?
Check its server count, when it was last updated, and whether it has real documentation. Refuse anything requesting permissions beyond its function.
Can a bot see my messages?
A bot with Read Messages in a channel can process messages there. Discord gates the broader message content access behind verification for large bots.
Keep reading
- members for a Discord server — Bots solve moderation and engagement and cannot solve arrival, which is the first problem every new server has — and members for a Discord server is aimed at that one.
- getting people through the door — Tooling matters once there is a community to tool, and getting people through the door covers the step before it.
- who holds the keys — Permissions are the whole security model here, and who holds the keys covers the top of that hierarchy.