How to Create a Discord Bot: A Complete Beginner's Guide

If you are setting up a Beatra Custom Bot, the first thing you need is your own Discord bot — an application with a token and the correct intents enabled. This guide walks you through every step. Prefer to watch instead? A full video tutorial is linked below.

🎥 Video tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qddwRsNU2X8

Creating a Discord bot is free and takes only a few minutes. Follow the steps in order.

Step 1 — Open the Discord Developer Portal

Go to the Discord Developer Portal at https://discord.com/developers/applications and sign in with your Discord account. This is the official place where all Discord bots are created and managed.

Step 2 — Create a New Application

Click New Application in the top-right corner. Give it a name — this is your bot's project name and can be changed later — accept the terms and click Create. You now have an application.

Step 3 — Open the Bot Tab

In the left sidebar, click the Bot tab. Discord automatically creates a bot user for your application. Here you can set the bot's username and profile picture, which is what your community will see.

Step 4 — Enable Privileged Gateway Intents

This is the most important step, and the one people miss most often. Scroll down to Privileged Gateway Intents and turn on all three:

• Presence Intent
• Server Members Intent
• Message Content Intent

Beatra needs the Message Content Intent to read commands, and the others to work correctly across your server. If these are off, your bot will fail to start or respond. Click Save Changes after enabling them.

Step 5 — Make the Bot Public

Still on the Bot tab, find the Public Bot setting and make sure it is turned on. This lets you — and the Beatra onboarding flow — add the bot to your server with an invite link. If it is off, only you could add it, and the setup may fail.

Step 6 — Copy Your Token

At the top of the Bot tab, click Reset Token and confirm. Discord shows your bot token only once — click Copy.

⚠️ Keep your token secret. Anyone with your token has full control of your bot. Never share it or post it publicly. If it ever leaks, come back here and reset it. Beatra stores your token fully encrypted and never shows it again.

Step 7 — Paste It into Beatra

Return to the Beatra Custom Bot onboarding screen and paste your token into the token field. Beatra validates the token and checks that the Message Content Intent is enabled before it continues. If you see an intent error, go back to Step 4, enable the intents, save and try again.

Common Problems

• "Message Content Intent is disabled" — you skipped Step 4. Enable all three intents and save.
• "Invalid token" — the token was copied incorrectly or was reset afterwards. Reset it again and copy the fresh one.
• Can't add the bot to a server — Public Bot is off (Step 5), or you don't have the "Manage Server" permission on that server.

You're Done

Once your token is validated, Beatra sets up your bot and gives you an invite link. From there, your Custom Bot runs the full Beatra experience under your own name. To learn more about the feature itself, read Introducing Custom Bot.