Permissions Arclo needs
Which Discord permissions and gateway intents Arclo uses, what breaks without each one, and how to diagnose a permission problem.
On this page
The invite asks for Administrator and, alongside it, every individual permission Arclo uses. Administrator means no feature can fail over a box somebody forgot; the individual grants mean unticking Administrator (on the invite screen, or on Arclo's role long afterwards) leaves a bot that still works. The one catch is channel tickets, which then need a ticket category picked in the dashboard. Nothing is used speculatively: the table below is what Arclo actually uses, and a feature you do not use can safely lose its permission in Server Settings → Roles.
Two different things
Permissions are what your server allows Arclo to do, and you control them. Intents are what Discord allows Arclo to receive, and they are set on the bot application itself. You do not need to do anything about them.
Permissions, and what needs them
| Permission | Used by | Without it |
|---|---|---|
| View Channels / Read Message History | Everything that reads a channel: logging, auto moderation, tickets, starboards, sticky messages | Arclo is blind in that channel. No filters, no logs, no stickies |
| Send Messages / Embed Links / Attach Files | Every message Arclo sends anywhere | Silent failures in exactly the channel you configured |
| Manage Messages | Moderation /clear, auto moderation deletions, auto purge, starboard cleanup, sticky reposts, clearing reactions | Nothing can be deleted |
| Pin Messages | Pinned leaderboards, the Temp Voice control panel, a ticket's pinned opening message, auto moderation honeypots, backup restore | Boards are posted but never pinned. Discord split this out of Manage Messages |
| Manage Roles | Auto Roles, Reaction Roles, level and achievement rewards, verification, the muted role, temporary roles, birthday roles, voice linking, channel ticket permissions | No role is ever granted or removed, and channel tickets cannot open |
| Manage Nicknames | Moderation's /nickname commands (set, reset, decancer, freeze), Auto Moderation's and Join Guard's rename actions, automations, backup restore | Nobody can be renamed, and a frozen nickname is not put back |
| Kick / Ban Members | Moderation, Auto Moderation punishments, Security responses, Join Guard | Warnings still work; kicks, bans and softbans do not |
| Moderate Members | Timeout-based mutes, the default mute method | Mutes fail unless you switch to a mute role |
| Manage Channels | Ticket channels, temporary voice rooms, statistics channels, lockdowns, slowmode manager, backups | Tickets never open and counters never update |
| Create Public / Private Threads, Send Messages in Threads, Manage Threads | Thread-mode tickets, giveaway winner threads, suggestion discussion, Temp Voice text rooms | Thread tickets never open; discussion threads are never created |
| Manage Webhooks | Batched log delivery, Social Alerts posting under the creator's name, Backups' message sync, loading a backup or chat log with its messages | Logs and alerts post as Arclo instead; message sync and message restores cannot run |
| Add Reactions | Reaction roles, reaction verification, suggestion voting, starboards | Panels post without their reactions |
| Use External Emojis / Stickers | Arclo's own emoji set in its embeds and buttons, and ticket permission sets | Buttons and embeds fall back to plain text |
| Mention Everyone | Welcome, giveaway, social alert and birthday announcements that ping a role or @everyone | The announcement still posts; the ping is silently dropped |
| Manage Expressions / Create Expressions | The Emojis system. Discord splits creating from editing, so both are needed | Nothing can be uploaded, renamed, restricted or archived |
| Manage Events / Create Events | Social Alerts' optional scheduled event while a stream is live, ended again when the stream ends | Alerts still post; no scheduled event is created |
| Connect / Move Members / Mute Members / Deafen Members | Temporary voice controls, /mute with the voice scope, /deafen, /voicekick, statistics counters that live in voice channels | Room owners cannot kick or move anybody; voice moderation fails; voice-channel counters stop updating |
| Set Voice Channel Status | /voice status in Temporary Voice | That one subcommand fails; every other voice control still works |
| Manage Server | Invite tracking and vanity URL protection | Invites cannot be attributed to an inviter |
| View Audit Log | Security's anti-nuke, and who did it on every log entry | Security cannot work at all; logs say what happened but not who |
| Create Instant Invite | Security's anti-nuke undo, putting back an invite an attacker deleted | A deleted invite cannot be restored |
Some permissions exist only so Arclo can take them away
Discord only lets a bot deny a permission it holds itself. Arclo never joins a voice channel and never sends a TTS message. It holds Speak, Video, Send TTS Messages, Send Voice Messages, Create Polls, Use Slash Commands, Use Soundboard, Use Embedded Activities, Priority Speaker and Request To Speak purely so a mute, a lockdown, a quarantine or a ticket's permission set can switch them off for somebody else. Deny one of these to Arclo and it is the muting that breaks, not the speaking.
Channel overwrites beat server permissions
Arclo having Send Messages at the server level means nothing if a category denies it. When a system works everywhere except one channel, check that channel's own permission overwrites first.
Gateway intents
Intents decide which events Discord sends the bot at all. They are configured on Arclo's application, not on your server. This section is here so you know what the bot can and cannot see.
- Server MembersPrivileged
- Joins, leaves and role changes. Welcome messages, Auto Roles, Join Guard, invite attribution and every member counter depend on it.
- Message ContentPrivileged
- The text of messages. Auto Moderation's filters, ticket transcripts, starboard reposts and automation word conditions all read it.
- PresencePrivileged
- Who is online, idle or busy. Statistics Channels' 12 counters about who is online, the online line of
/info serverand the optional status dot on a rank card read it. Nothing about a member's status is ever stored. It is counted in memory and dropped. - Messages, Reactions, Moderation, Invites, Voice States, Webhooks, Integrations, Expressions, Scheduled Events, Polls, AutoMod
- Non-privileged, always on. They carry messages and reactions themselves (filters, reaction roles, starboards), and back the ban/unban triggers, invite tracking, voice systems, the Apps & Integrations log types, the emoji and sticker counters, the scheduled-events counter, poll vote logging, and logging of Discord's own AutoMod.
Role hierarchy
Permissions are only half of it. Discord also refuses any action against a member whose highest role sits above the acting bot's highest role. Regardless of permissions.
- Arclo cannot ban, kick, mute or rename somebody who outranks it.
- Arclo cannot grant or remove a role positioned above its own.
- Role pickers in the dashboard mark unreachable roles, and the Settings page warns when Arclo has no Manage Roles at all.
- The fix is always the same: Server Settings → Roles, drag Arclo's role higher.
Diagnosing a permission problem
Check the channel, not just the server
Right-click the channel → Edit Channel → Permissions → Arclo. This is where the answer usually is.
Check the role ladder
If it works on ordinary members and fails on moderators, it is hierarchy, not permissions.
Check the logs
With Logging set up, each system's own logger (switched on under Logging → System Logs) records what it could not do: a welcome that could not be posted, a reward role that could not be given, a punishment Discord refused. Most say why, and Moderation's names the permission it was missing. The Arclo log category adds Command failed for commands that errored.
Still stuck? Ask in the support server: somebody there has almost certainly configured this before.