Self-Hosting an AI Assistant: Part 4 - Discord Bot Integration

Joshua is installed and running as a daemon on WOPR. Now he needs a way to communicate. I chose Discord since I already use it daily and the bot setup is straightforward.

Create the Discord Application

Head to the Discord Developer Portal and create a new application. I named mine “Joshua” to keep the theme going.

Once created, go to the Bot section in the left sidebar and click Reset Token. Copy this token somewhere safe - you’ll need it for OpenClaw’s config and Discord won’t show it again.

Enable Privileged Intents

Still in the Bot section, scroll down to Privileged Gateway Intents and enable:

• Message Content Intent - Required for Joshua to read message content
• Presence Intent - Optional, lets Joshua see user status
• Server Members Intent - Optional, lets Joshua see member lists

Message Content Intent is the critical one. Without it, Joshua receives empty messages and can’t respond. He needs to hear the question before he can ask if you’d like to play a game.

Generate the Invite URL

Go to OAuth2 > URL Generator in the sidebar.

Under Scopes, select:

• bot

Under Bot Permissions, select:

• Send Messages
• Read Message History
• View Channels

Copy the generated URL at the bottom and open it in your browser. Select your server and authorize the bot.

Configure OpenClaw

Back on WOPR, edit the OpenClaw config:

vim ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json

Add your Discord bot token and channel ID to the appropriate section. You can get the channel ID by enabling Developer Mode in Discord (Settings > Advanced > Developer Mode), then right-clicking the channel and selecting “Copy Channel ID”.

Restart the daemon to pick up the changes:

openclaw daemon stop
openclaw daemon start

Test It

Send a message in your Discord channel. If everything is configured correctly, Joshua should respond. Check the logs if he doesn’t:

openclaw logs

Common issues:

• Joshua doesn’t respond: Check that Message Content Intent is enabled
• Authentication errors: Verify the bot token is correct in the config
• Channel not found: Double-check the channel ID

Quick Reference

Task	Location
Create Discord app	discord.com/developers/applications
Bot token	Bot section > Reset Token
Enable intents	Bot section > Privileged Gateway Intents
Generate invite URL	OAuth2 > URL Generator
Get channel ID	Right-click channel in Discord (Developer Mode)

Next Up

Joshua can hear me now, but he doesn’t have a brain yet. Next post covers connecting him to Claude’s API - including a detour through rate limits and token formats. Time to wake him up.

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This post was co-written with Claude, who is about to become Joshua’s brain.