# Gateway Intents
WARNING
Version 13 of Discord.js will require you to choose intents (as it uses a new version of Discord's API), it's worthwhile reading this section even if you don't currently want to update, so you know what to do later.
Gateway Intents were introduced by Discord so bot developers can choose which events their bot receives based on which data it needs to function. Intents are named groups of pre-defined WebSocket events, which the Discord.js client will receive. If you omit DIRECT_MESSAGE_TYPING, for example, you will no longer receive typing events from direct messages. If you provide no intents, version 12 will receive all events for allowed intents, and version 13 will throw an error.
# Privileged Intents
Discord defines some intents as "privileged" due to the data's sensitive nature. At the time of writing this article, privileged intents are GUILD_PRESENCES and GUILD_MEMBERS. If your bot is not verified and in less than 100 guilds, you can enable privileged gateway intents in the Discord Developer Portal (opens new window) under "Privileged Gateway Intents" in the "Bot" section. If your bot is already verified or is about to require verification (opens new window), you need to request privileged intents. You can do this in your verification application or by reaching out to Discord's support team (opens new window), including why you require access to each privileged intent.
Before storming off and doing so, you should stop and carefully think about if you need these events. Discord made them opt-in so users across the platform can enjoy a higher level of privacy (opens new window). Presences can expose quite a bit of personal information through games and online times, for example. You might find it sufficient for your bot to have a little less information about all guild members at all times, considering you still get the command author as GuildMember from the command execution message and can fetch targets separately.
# Problems in version 12
GUILD_MEMBERS
- The client events
"guildMemberAdd","guildMemberRemove","guildMemberUpdate"do not emit Guild#memberCount(opens new window) returns the member count as of ready- Fetching members times out
GUILD_PRESENCES
- Member caches are empty (or only have very few entries)
- User cache is empty (or has only very few entries)
- All members appear to be offline
# Error: Disallowed Intents
Should you receive an error prefixed with [DISALLOWED_INTENTS], please review your developer dashboard settings for all privileged intents you use. This topic's official documentation is on the Discord API documentation (opens new window).
# Enabling Intents
To specify which events you want your bot to receive, first think about which events your bot needs to operate. Then select the required intents and add them to your client constructor, as shown below.
All gateway intents, and the events belonging to each, are listed on the Discord API documentation (opens new window). If you need your bot to receive messages (MESSAGE_CREATE - "message" in discord.js), you need the GUILD_MESSAGES intent. If you want your bot to post welcome messages for new members (GUILD_MEMBER_ADD - "guildMemberAdd" in discord.js), you need the GUILD_MEMBERS intent, and so on.
const { Client } = require('discord.js');
const client = new Client({ ws: { intents: ['GUILDS', 'GUILD_MESSAGES'] } });
WARNING
Note that discord.js relies heavily on caching to provide its functionality. Some methods that seem unrelated might stop working if certain events do not arrive.
Please make sure to provide the list of gateway intents and partials you use in your Client constructor when asking for support on our Discord server (opens new window) or GitHub repository (opens new window).
# The Intents Bitfield
Discord.js provides a utility structure Intents (opens new window) which you can use to modify bitfields easily. The class also features static attributes for all (Intents.ALL), privileged (Intents.PRIVILEGED), and non-privileged (Intents.NON_PRIVILEGED) intents.
These primarily serve as templates. While using them directly is possible, we strongly discourage you from using them that way. Instead, think about which events your bot strictly needs access to based on the functionality you want it to provide.
You can use the .add() and .remove() methods to add or remove flags (Intent string literals representing a certain bit) and modify the bitfield. You can provide single flags as well as an array or bitfield. To use a set of intents as a template you can pass it to the constructor. A few approaches are demonstrated below (note that the empty constructor new Intents() creates an empty Intents instance, representing no intents or the bitfield 0):
const { Client, Intents } = require('discord.js');
const myIntents = new Intents();
myIntents.add('GUILD_PRESENCES', 'GUILD_MEMBERS');
const client = new Client({ ws: { intents: myIntents } });
// more examples about manipulating the bitfield
const otherIntents = new Intents(Intents.NON_PRIVILEGED);
otherIntents.remove(['DIRECT_MESSAGES', 'GUILD_MESSAGES']);
const otherIntents2 = new Intents(32509);
otherIntents2.remove(4096, 512);
If you want to view the built flags you can utilize the .toArray(), .serialize() and .missing() methods. The first returns an array of flags represented in this bitfield, the second an object mapping all possible flag values to a boolean, based on their representation in this bitfield. The third method can view the flags not represented (you use it by passing a bitfield of specific intents to check for).
# More on Bitfields
Discord Intents and Permissions are stored in a 53-bit integer and calculated using bitwise operations. If you want to dive deeper into what's happening behind the curtains, check the Wikipedia (opens new window) and MDN (opens new window) articles on the topic.
In discord.js, Permissions and Intents bitfields are represented as either the decimal value of said bit field or its referenced flags. Every position in a permissions bitfield represents one of these flags and its state (either referenced 1 or not referenced 0).