Discord bot API cheat sheet

Privileged intents

• GUILD_MEMBERS (1 << 1)
• GUILD_PRESENCES (1 << 8)
• MESSAGE_CONTENT (1 << 15) needed to read message text outside mentions and DMs
• Enable them in the Developer Portal; verified bots in 100 or more servers need approval.

Permissions and intents calculator

Interaction responses

• 1 PONG (HTTP endpoint ping)
• 4 CHANNEL_MESSAGE_WITH_SOURCE
• 5 DEFERRED_CHANNEL_MESSAGE_WITH_SOURCE (thinking...)
• 6 DEFERRED_UPDATE_MESSAGE, 7 UPDATE_MESSAGE (components)
• 8 AUTOCOMPLETE_RESULT, 9 MODAL
• Respond within 3 seconds; follow up with the token for 15 minutes. Flag 64 makes a reply ephemeral.

Commands

• PUT /applications/{app_id}/commands global (bulk overwrite)
• PUT /applications/{app_id}/guilds/{guild_id}/commands instant, for testing
• Option types: 3 STRING, 4 INTEGER, 5 BOOLEAN, 6 USER, 7 CHANNEL, 8 ROLE, 9 MENTIONABLE, 10 NUMBER, 11 ATTACHMENT

Slash command builder

Mentions and markdown

• <@USER_ID>, <@&ROLE_ID>, <#CHANNEL_ID>
• <t:UNIX:R> timestamps; styles t T d D f F R
• **bold** *italic* __underline__ ~~strike~~ ||spoiler|| `code`, ```lang blocks
• Use allowed_mentions to stop a bot from pinging @everyone by accident.

Rate limit headers

• X-RateLimit-Limit, X-RateLimit-Remaining
• X-RateLimit-Reset-After (seconds), X-RateLimit-Bucket
• X-RateLimit-Global, X-RateLimit-Scope on 429
• Global limit 50 requests per second; 10,000 invalid requests per 10 minutes leads to a temporary IP ban.

Common errors

• 50001 Missing Access bot cannot see the channel
• 50013 Missing Permissions role order or channel overwrites
• 10062 Unknown interaction responded after 3 seconds
• 40060 Interaction has already been acknowledged
• 4014 Disallowed intent(s) Gateway close code: enable the intent in the portal