Connecting OpenClaw to Discord on Azure: Bot Setup and Configuration

🤖 Why Discord + OpenClaw?

Discord is one of the most popular channels for OpenClaw. With a Discord bot, your AI agent can respond to messages in channels and DMs, making it accessible to your team, community, or personal server 24/7.

This guide covers the complete flow: creating the bot in Discord, configuring it in OpenClaw, and fixing the most common integration errors.

📝 Step 1: Create a Discord Application

1. Go to the Discord Developer Portal
2. Click New Application
3. Give it a name (e.g., “OpenClaw Bot”) and click Create

🔑 Step 2: Create the Bot and Get the Token

1. In the left sidebar, click Bot
2. Click Add Bot (if not already created)
3. Under Token, click Reset Token (or View Token)
4. Copy the token — you’ll need this for OpenClaw

Important: The bot token is shown only once after reset. Store it securely.

⚡ Step 3: Enable Privileged Gateway Intents

This is the step most people miss, and it causes the dreaded Fatal Gateway error: 4014.

In the Discord Developer Portal:

1. Navigate to your app → Bot
2. Scroll to Privileged Gateway Intents
3. Enable these intents:
   • ✅ Message Content Intent — Required for the bot to read message text
   • ✅ Server Members Intent — Recommended for member-aware features
   • ✅ Presence Intent — Optional, enables presence-based features
4. Click Save Changes

What happens without Message Content Intent

If you don’t enable it, OpenClaw will warn you:

[discord] Discord Message Content Intent is disabled;
bot may not respond to channel messages.
Enable it in Discord Dev Portal (Bot → Privileged Gateway Intents)
or require mentions.

And worse — the gateway may crash with:

[openclaw] Uncaught exception: Error: Fatal Gateway error: 4014

Error code 4014 specifically means “Disallowed intent(s)” — Discord is rejecting the connection because the bot requested intents it hasn’t been approved for.

🔗 Step 4: Generate the Bot Invite Link

1. In the Developer Portal, go to OAuth2 → URL Generator
2. Under Scopes, check:
   • ✅ bot
   • ✅ applications.commands (optional, for slash commands)
3. Under Bot Permissions, select at minimum:
   • ✅ Read Messages / View Channels
   • ✅ Send Messages
   • ✅ Read Message History
   • ✅ Embed Links (optional, for rich responses)
4. Copy the generated URL

Invite the bot

Open the URL in your browser. You’ll see an authorization page:

1. Select the Discord server where you want the bot
2. Review permissions
3. Click Authorize
4. Complete the CAPTCHA

Your bot should now appear in the server’s member list (it’ll show as offline until OpenClaw connects).

⚙️ Step 5: Configure the Token in OpenClaw

SSH into your Azure VM and set the bot token:

cd ~/openclaw

# Set the Discord bot token (new config namespace)
docker compose run --rm openclaw-cli config set \
  channels.discord.botToken "<YOUR_BOT_TOKEN>"

Note: In newer OpenClaw versions, Discord config moved from discord.* to channels.discord.*. If you use the old path, you’ll see:

Error: Config validation failed: discord: discord config moved
to channels.discord (auto-migrated on load).

Enable the Discord channel

docker compose run --rm openclaw-cli config set \
  channels.discord.enabled true

Restart the gateway

docker compose down
docker compose up -d
docker compose logs -f --tail=100 openclaw-gateway

✅ Step 6: Verify the Connection

In the gateway logs, you should see:

[discord] [default] starting provider (@openclaw)

Without any Fatal Gateway error: 4014 following it.

Test in Discord

1. Go to your Discord server
2. Send a message in a channel the bot can see
3. The bot should respond through the AI model

Check channel permissions

If the bot doesn’t respond:

1. In Discord, right-click the channel → Edit Channel → Permissions
2. Ensure the bot role has:
   • ✅ View Channel
   • ✅ Send Messages
   • ✅ Read Message History

🐛 Common Discord Issues

Fatal Gateway error: 4014

Cause: Bot requested intents not enabled in Discord Developer Portal.

Fix:

1. Discord Developer Portal → Bot → Privileged Gateway Intents
2. Enable Message Content Intent
3. Save Changes
4. Restart OpenClaw: docker compose down && docker compose up -d

Bot is online but doesn’t respond

Causes:

• Message Content Intent not enabled (bot can’t read messages)
• Bot doesn’t have channel permissions
• Bot is only responding to mentions (check config)

Fix:

# Check Discord config
docker compose run --rm openclaw-cli config get | grep -i discord

Config validation error about discord namespace

Cause: Using old discord.* config path.

Fix: Use channels.discord.* instead:

docker compose run --rm openclaw-cli config set channels.discord.botToken "<TOKEN>"
docker compose run --rm openclaw-cli config set channels.discord.enabled true

Gateway crash loop after enabling Discord

If the gateway keeps restarting after enabling Discord, temporarily disable it to stabilize:

docker compose run --rm openclaw-cli config set channels.discord.enabled false
docker compose down
docker compose up -d

Then fix the Discord config and re-enable.

🔐 Security Notes

• Never commit your bot token to version control
• Regenerate the token if you suspect it’s been exposed
• Restrict bot permissions to only what’s needed
• Use a dedicated server for testing before adding the bot to production servers

⏭️ Next Steps

With Discord connected, let’s explore the Control UI dashboard: Accessing OpenClaw Control UI Dashboard.