> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.minidesk.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Discord

> Answer customers from your own Discord server, without opening the dashboard.

New conversations show up as a card in your team's Discord server. Answer in
the card's thread, and the customer gets your reply on whatever channel they
wrote in on.

> [!NOTE]
>
> Discord is **not** a channel your customers use. Nobody messages you on
> Discord. It is a second place for your team to read and answer the
> conversations that arrive by email, chat widget, contact form, Telegram,
> Instagram or Messenger.

## What you need

A Discord server you can add a bot to, which means the **Manage Server**
permission on it. Two minutes. Nothing to host and nothing to install.

Unlike Telegram, the bot is **ours**. You are inviting the miniDesk bot into
your server rather than creating one of your own, so there is no token to copy
and nothing to keep safe.

## Set it up

**1. Open the Discord card**

In the dashboard, go to **Channels**. Discord is under **Add an
integration**, at the bottom of the screen. Press **Connect**, then
**Continue to Discord**. Only an Owner sees the Channels screen at all.

![The Discord window: how it works, the three steps, what the bot can do, and Continue to Discord](https://mintcdn.com/minidesk/-b91qe10vakJKfoG/images/discord/connect.png?fit=max\&auto=format\&n=-b91qe10vakJKfoG\&q=85\&s=707af976f58157bc3b0b5c921ccbbec6)

**2. Pick the server and the channel**

Discord's own screen asks for both. Pick the channel your team actually
reads. Everything is posted there, and changing it later means going
through this again.

**3. Wait for a conversation**

Discord sends you back to the dashboard, where Discord now sits under
**Connected integrations**. It says **No conversations yet** until the
next one arrives and posts a card, because a message actually landing is
the only proof the setup works.

The bot can read and post in the one channel you pick, and open threads there.
It cannot see your other channels.

## What a conversation looks like

A card in the channel, with the customer's name, what they wrote, and the
conversation number. Under it, a thread: every later message on that
conversation lands there, the customer's, your team's and the AI's, so the
thread reads like the conversation does.

Internal notes are not posted. Neither the card nor the thread is a copy of
the conversation: each message is cut at 400 characters, and **Open in
miniDesk** takes you to the full thing, with the history, the customer's
details and any attachments.

A conversation that was already open when you connected Discord gets its card
the next time someone writes on it. If somebody deletes a card's thread, later
messages on that conversation go to the channel itself.

## Answering

There are two ways, and both send.

* **Type in the thread.** Anything a person writes in a card's thread goes to
  the customer. A ✅ appears on your message once it has gone out. If it did
  not reach them, the bot says so in the thread instead.
* **Press Reply.** Discord opens a box. What you type goes to the customer, up
  to 4000 characters.

> [!WARNING]
>
> A card's thread is not a place to discuss the conversation with your team.
> Everything typed there is sent to the customer. Talk about it somewhere else
> in your server, or leave an internal note in miniDesk.

A reply from Discord is a normal reply from then on. It goes out on the
customer's own channel, counts against your [sending
limits](/guides/sending-limits), and follows that channel's rules. On
Instagram and Messenger, for example, it can only reach the customer within
[Meta's reply window](/channels/instagram#replying).

If the customer's channel refuses your reply, or your workspace is over its
sending limits, Discord tells you it did not reach them. The reply is still on
the conversation in miniDesk, with an internal note saying why.

## Linking your account

Optional, and nothing to do up front. Replies go out whether or not you have
linked; linking is what signs them with **your** name instead of your Discord
name.

Send one unlinked and you are offered the link: in the confirmation only you
see when you used **Reply**, or once by direct message when you typed in the
thread. Or do it in advance from **Settings → Profile**, under
**Integrations**, with **Link my account**. It is there rather than on the
Channels screen because each person does it for themselves, and the Channels
screen is Owner-only.

You link once, and it covers every workspace you belong to. One Discord
account belongs to one person: it can be linked to one miniDesk user at a
time.

## Who can answer

**Anyone who can see that Discord channel can answer your customers.** Access
to the channel is the whole of the permission, so connect a channel your team
controls, not one guests or the public can read.

Linking is about attribution, not access. A linked reply is authored by that
member and shows their name everywhere in miniDesk. An unlinked one still
sends, recorded under whatever their Discord account is called, pointing at no
member: a Discord name is chosen by its owner and we have not checked it
against anything.

If you would rather that were a permission, keep the channel private and
manage it with Discord's own roles. That is the control, and it lives on
Discord's side.

## Turning it off

Open **Channels**, then **Configure** on the Discord row. The **Post
conversations to Discord** switch stops cards being posted and stops replies
being accepted from Discord, including anything typed in a thread. The
connection is kept, so you can switch it back on.

**Disconnect Discord** removes it entirely. Cards already in your Discord
channel stay where they are, because they are your server's history and not
ours to delete. Their buttons stop working and say so.

Conversations are untouched either way. They are in your inbox, exactly as they
were.

## Limits worth knowing

* **One Discord server per workspace.** A server cannot be shared between two
  workspaces: a button press only tells us which server it came from, so a
  shared one would be ambiguous. Two workspaces need two servers.
* **No attachments from Discord.** Files on a message typed in the thread are
  left out, and a message that is only a file is not sent. Send those from the
  dashboard.
* **4000 characters** per reply in the **Reply** box, which is Discord's limit
  on the box.
* **Resolving and assigning** are not on the card yet. Use **Open in miniDesk**.

## If nothing is posting

> **The row says 'No conversations yet'**
>
> Nothing has arrived since you connected. Send yourself a test conversation
> on any channel and watch the Discord channel.

> **The row says 'Cannot post to that channel'**
>
> The bot cannot see the channel it is pointed at. In Discord, open that
> channel's permissions, add the **miniDesk.ai** role, and allow **View
> Channel**. A private channel does not inherit the bot's server
> permissions. The same thing happens if the bot was removed from the
> server: add it back.

> **I typed in the thread and nothing happened**
>
> Check that **Post conversations to Discord** is on. While it is off,
> messages typed in a thread are not sent. A message that is only a file is
> not sent either.

> **Settings says the Discord account is already linked**
>
> That Discord account is linked to a different miniDesk user. Unlink it
> there first, or link a different Discord account. One Discord account
> belongs to one person.


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