Four ways in, none of them an install. A Discord server: open the invite link with Manage Server, approve the permissions, pick the server. Your own Discord account: the same link offers Add to my apps; its commands then work in every server you are in and in DMs, no admin needed. Telegram: message @ErgodDev_bot and that message creates your workspace. A browser: sign in at app.ergod.dev with Discord, GitHub or Google and type. Below: every step, what you see at each one, every permission and why, and what to do when it does not answer.
Don't own a server you can install bots on? You don't need one — start in your browser, or add Ergod to your account — its commands work in every server you're in, and in DMs. No install, no admin rights.
Adding any bot to a Discord server is the same three steps, and you need Manage Server permission on the server you are adding it to. You click an invite link, Discord shows you exactly which permissions the bot is asking for, and you pick the server. That is the whole flow — there is no install on your machine and nothing to host.
The part people get stuck on is the permission screen, because it is the one moment you are agreeing to something without being told why. The section below lists every permission Ergod asks for and what breaks if you decline it, which is the answer that link usually does not give you.
If you do not run a server, you do not need one. The same install link also offers Add to my apps — add Ergod to your own account and its commands work in every server you are in, even ones that do not have the bot, and in DMs. Ergod also works in a browser tab and in Telegram, with the same agent and the same files.
Discord OAuth flow. You'll need Manage Server on the server you're adding it to.
Click Add to your server above. Discord will ask you to pick a server you have Manage Server on. If you're inviting Ergod for someone else, send them this page - only a server admin can complete a server install (anyone can still add Ergod to their own account instead - its commands then work in every server they're in).
Discord shows the exact permission set Ergod is asking for. The defaults cover replies, public reply threads, polls, and creating Ergod's own events - nothing destructive, no kick/ban, no admin. Full breakdown below. You can tighten further by limiting the bot's role to specific channels.
By default Ergod responds anywhere it can see an @-mention. Most servers want to scope it tighter. Two options:
View Channel + Send Messages in the channels you want./ergod-config channel action:allow channel:#dev-help from any text channel - explicit allowlist, stacks across multiple channels, persists across role edits./ergod-config threads mode:always. Ergod will reply in a thread off the trigger message instead of cluttering the channel. Keep @-mentioning it inside the thread - Ergod runs without the Message Content intent, so an un-mentioned message is invisible to it.In one of the allowed channels, mention it with a task: @Ergod make me a one-page countdown to Friday. The first response after install will take up to ~20s while your container provisions. Warm replies land in 10-15s. Free gives every user in the server a full day's usage that refills every day, plus a usage bonus to start that never expires. What happens between the mention and the file.
Some teams want to restrict who can use the bot, or unlock the Pro tier (2.5× Free's usage, pooled over a rolling week so a big night can spend it; sub-agent dispatch; containers that stay warm 60 minutes instead of 10; channel-shaped personas; hosting several shared channel sessions at once — every tier hosts one, free, on its own storage). Any tier — Free included — can plug in a Claude / GPT / Gemini / OpenRouter key with /byok set to make the same usage go about 5× further.
/ergod-config role action:block role:@Read-Only - block a role from invoking Ergod. Use action:unblock to reverse.@Ergod mention, a DM, or a slash command’s arguments. Open with the task: @Ergod make me a one-page countdown to Friday. A first message that is only “hi” or “what can you do?” never reaches the agent; it gets a card instead - Hey — I build things in Discord, Try one of these: and a few concrete asks - because half of all first turns used to be exactly that and none of them came back..html you can open, a script you can run - and the 👀 becomes a ✅. In a channel the reply and the files are visible to the channel; whose workspace they went into is the choice from step two. Whatever it built stays put: come back tomorrow, mention it again, and tell it what to change.One such run, from the public showcase: a member asked “make us a wordle that only uses words from our server's inside jokes: BONK, YEET, SUSSY, GRIND, VIBED. give me a playable page”, Ergod made 5 tool calls in 32.8 seconds, and 3 files came back into the channel, among them inside-joke-wordle.html at 11,227 bytes of standalone HTML. It spent 2.08% of one day’s free usage. The recorded runs, with every step and the reviewed result.
Add the bot once. Everyone in the server can use it, and each person has a private workspace unless they choose the channel’s shared room — nobody sees anyone else’s personal files. You are not sharing one chat history with forty people unless the channel decides to.
Ask for a website, a game, a script or a summary. It writes the files, runs the commands, and posts the result back into the channel as real files you can download. That is the difference between an agent and a chatbot.
You do not need your own key — though any tier can add one with /byok. The free tier includes real usage that refills every day at midnight UTC, with 1 GB of workspace, and no card.
Preferences, corrections and project decisions carry across sessions. Ask for the same thing next week and you do not start from nothing.
The same agent, reachable three ways — and the same files across all three once you link the accounts in the dashboard. Start something in Discord on your phone, pick it up in the browser dashboard at a desk.
Channel rules, blocked roles, thread mode, mention scrubbing, the room recommendation and each channel’s room policy: set them by slash command or from the dashboard. Every switch on the Servers page.
Both, depending on what you mean. Most things sold as a Discord AI bot are chat bots: you say something, they say something back, and that is the whole loop. Useful, and genuinely fun in a server, but the conversation is the product. Ergod answers the same request and then keeps going: it writes the files, runs the commands, and posts the result into the channel as something you can download. That is the line between a chat bot and an agent — one produces replies, the other produces work — and it installs the same way, lives in the same channels, and every member of your server can use it.
Once Ergod is in, any member can open the Activity in a voice channel: start a round, pick a game, or play what the room already made. Nobody needs to be an admin for that part. How the Activity works.
Discord groups permissions into a single OAuth grant. Below is every individual permission inside the install URL, explained one by one. Notably absent: Manage Server, Manage Channels, Kick, Ban, Mention Everyone, Administrator.
These are gated behind the Discord Manage Channels permission - the same bit Ergod checks before it will show you anything about a server. Members without it won't see these in the slash-command picker. The full command list (including end-user commands) lives on the commands page.
Allowlist or blocklist a specific channel. Once any channel is allow-listed, all others are off by default. Stacks.
Block a role from invoking Ergod, or unblock a previously-blocked one. Blocklist only - no role allowlist.
Whether Ergod creates a thread for each reply across the whole server.
Override thread mode for the current channel. default returns to the server-wide setting.
Toggle scrubbing of @everyone, @here, and role pings in Ergod's replies.
How Ergod tells users they're blocked - a private notice or no reply at all. Applies to slash commands only: Discord cannot answer an @mention privately, so a blocked @mention is always dropped in silence.
Print the current server-wide config (allowed channels, blocked channels, blocked roles, thread mode, mention scrub).
Open a shared channel session — host it yourself or nominate a sponsor. Sponsor: who'll host the shared workspace (defaults to you; Free hosts up to three across servers). A nominee accepts before the room starts. /share-session is the same thing without the argument.
End this shared room; retained files are cleaned up after 90 days.
Show whether this channel has a shared session.
Block a user from engaging with this channel's session — they still get normal bot access in DMs and other channels.
Remove a user from this channel session's blocklist.
Show the current blocklist for this channel's session.
Sign in at app.ergod.dev/dashboard and a Servers tab lists the servers Ergod is in where you hold Manage Channels. Pick one and its whole configuration is on the page, grouped the way the bot applies it, and every setting is a control you can change right there. The groups and rows, in the page’s own words:
/ergod-config channel./ergod-config threads./ergod-config threads-here./ergod-config mentions./ergod-config role./ergod-config deny-reply./session server-default./session channel-policy./ergod-config channel-session status.Manage Channels permission is re-derived against Discord on the write as well as the read.Manage Channels in no server Ergod is in, there is no Servers item and no Servers page at all, rather than an empty one. Your permission is re-checked against Discord on every single request, including on the reads, so losing the permission closes the page on the next click.The short version. Full detail lives in privacy and how it thinks.
Each user gets a Docker container scoped to their workspace. No cross-tenant access; ALL caps dropped, no-new-privileges enforced, RFC1918 + cloud metadata blocked at egress.
/export ships your workspace as a zip, or download individual files from the dashboard file browser at app.ergod.dev/dashboard. /session reset clears history; /factory-reset rebuilds the container from scratch.
Ergod runs without Discord's Message Content intent. It only ever sees messages that @-mention it, DM it, or pass slash-command arguments - everything else arrives with the text already stripped by Discord.
Linked GitHub tokens are encrypted with Fernet (AES-128-CBC + HMAC-SHA256), scoped per-owner, and never written to your workspace filesystem.
@Ergod-mention it, DM it, or are slash-command arguments; Discord strips everything else before it arrives, because Ergod runs without the Message Content intent. Mention it, including inside a thread it opened. If a mention still gets nothing, an admin has either blocked the channel or your role with /ergod-config: a blocked @mention is dropped in silence, since Discord cannot answer a mention privately. /ergod-config show prints the rules./usage shows what is left as a percentage and when it refills: every day on Free, a rolling seven-day pool on Pro and Pro+. Credits bought once, or earned with /vote on top.gg, are spent after the included usage and never expire. Your own provider key via /byok set makes the same usage go about 5× further on any tier. Slash commands like /help and /vote never cost anything.Open the invite link on this page with Manage Server on the server, review the permissions Discord lists (replies, threads, files, polls, events; no kick, ban or admin), and pick the server. Ergod posts one welcome in the first writable channel with four buttons: Try one thing, Start a room here, Set me up, and Use my own agent by default. Then @-mention it with a task; the first time, it asks Shared room or Just me before it runs.
Yes, three ways. Add it to your own Discord account (the same link offers Add to my apps) and its commands work in every server you are in and in DMs, where the Activity opens a table for just you and Ergod or a group DM. Message @ErgodDev_bot on Telegram and that message creates your workspace. Or sign in at app.ergod.dev with Discord, GitHub or Google and type in a browser tab. Nothing is installed in any of them.
Send @ErgodDev_bot a message; there is no account to make first. If you already use Ergod elsewhere, link the chat before that first message: dashboard, Account, Sign-in methods, Link Telegram, which opens the bot with a one-time code. In a group, add the bot and it posts one card saying how to address it; then mention it by name or reply to it. /play answers with a button per game.
Usually because the message did not mention it: Ergod runs without the Message Content intent, so it only receives @-mentions, DMs and slash-command arguments. Otherwise an admin has blocked the channel or your role with /ergod-config, and a blocked mention is dropped in silence; /ergod-config show prints the rules. If it asked Shared room or Just me, your request is held until you press one.
No server of your own? Start in the browser instead - same agent, same workspace, nothing to install.