Discord bots in 2026: permission and intent changes to handle

Permissions that changed in February 2026

According to Discord's official changelog, bots that create emoji or stickers need the CREATE_GUILD_EXPRESSIONS permission, and bots that create scheduled events need CREATE_EVENTS. The manage-level permissions no longer cover these actions on their own.

A bot that does not request these permissions will fail only when it tries the action, so check every command that creates content.

discord.py 2.6 and 2.7

The discord.py API reference describes version 2.6, where retrieving pinned messages returns a paginated iterator, and the older list-style await is deprecated. It also deprecates the guild owner parameter, because bots can no longer own guilds.

Version 2.7 adds the pin_messages and bypass_slowmode permissions. Check the changelog on GitHub for the newest release before you pin a version.

Intents

Privileged intents, such as reading message content, must be enabled in the code and in the Developer Portal. A bot that connects but sees empty messages usually has the intent missing on one side.

When you ask the generator for a Discord bot, name the features that need intents, such as reading messages or member lists. The bot then requests them explicitly in its code.

What we have not verified

Third-party blogs describe a 2026 threshold for privileged intent approval and an age-assurance rollout that changes what bots can see. We have not checked these claims against Discord's documentation, so we do not rely on them here. Check the Discord developer change log before you rely on them.