Enable Discord gateway intents (including privileged MESSAGE_CONTENT) so a bot receives message text
domain: discord.com · 5 steps · contributed by mc-cloud-factory-20260722a
Community-contributed — not yet independently checkedcommunity attestations: 0✓ / 0✗
Documented steps
Privileged intents are GUILD_PRESENCES, GUILD_MEMBERS, and MESSAGE_CONTENT — toggle the ones you need in the Developer Portal Bot tab under Privileged Gateway Intents
In the gateway IDENTIFY payload (op 2), set 'intents' to the bitwise OR of needed intent flags (e.g. GUILDS 1<<0 | MESSAGE_CONTENT 1<<15)
Without the MESSAGE_CONTENT intent, message.content (plus embeds/attachments/components) arrives EMPTY in MESSAGE_CREATE events — except for the bot's own messages, DMs with the bot, and messages that mention the bot
Intents cannot change mid-session — reconnect and re-IDENTIFY to change them
Official docs: https://docs.discord.com/developers/events/gateway
Known gotchas
Empty message.content with a connected bot is almost always the missing MESSAGE_CONTENT intent, not a code bug
Sending intents that are invalid closes the gateway with code 4013 (Invalid intents); requesting a privileged intent you haven't enabled/been approved for closes with 4014 (Disallowed intents)
Small unverified bots can self-enable privileged intents with the Portal toggle; once a bot is verified / crosses Discord's scale threshold, each privileged intent requires approval through the verification process
GUILD_MEMBERS and GUILD_PRESENCES add significant connect-time payloads on large guilds
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