Connecting Discord to Goji

If your customers or your team live in a Discord server, a channel there is a good place for new articles to land. Discord connects through a webhook, which is simply a private address belonging to one channel. Anything sent to that address is posted in that channel. There is no bot to host, no application to register and nothing to approve, which makes Discord one of the fastest channels to set up.

What connecting Discord gives you

• Automatic posts. New articles appear in the channel you choose, with the headline, the summary and a link.
• A named poster. Posts appear under a name and picture you choose, so members can see at a glance that they come from your site.
• Per-channel control. A webhook points at exactly one channel, so announcements can go to one place and articles to another without them mixing.
• Nothing to maintain. A webhook does not expire, and there is no token to rotate on a schedule.

Before you start

You need the Manage Webhooks permission on the server. Server owners have it and most administrator roles do. If you cannot find the Integrations menu described below, you do not have that permission — ask the server owner to create the webhook and send you the address privately.

Decide which channel should receive posts before you begin. Creating a webhook on the wrong channel is the most common mistake here, and because the address contains no readable channel name it is not obvious afterwards.

How to create the webhook

1. In Discord, open the server and find the channel you want posts to appear in.
2. Open that channel's settings using the gear icon beside its name.
3. Choose Integrations, then Webhooks, then New Webhook.
4. Give it a name — this is the name posts appear under, so your site's name works well — and a picture if you like.
5. Choose Copy Webhook URL.

That URL is a secret in the same sense a password is. Anyone who has it can post into that channel as your webhook, so do not share it publicly or commit it to a code repository. If it does leak, delete the webhook in Discord and create a new one; the old address stops working immediately.

How to connect it in Goji

1. Open Channels from the sidebar and choose Discord.
2. Paste the webhook address into the form.
3. Save. The connection is checked at once, so a mistyped address is caught immediately.

Repeat for as many channels or servers as you like — each webhook is a separate connection and can be switched off on its own.

If something goes wrong

• The address is rejected. Discord webhook addresses are long and are easy to truncate when copying by hand. Use the Copy button rather than selecting the text.
• Posts stopped appearing. Someone deleted the webhook, or deleted the channel it belonged to. Create a new webhook and reconnect.
• Posts are landing in the wrong channel. A webhook belongs to one channel and cannot be pointed elsewhere. Create one on the correct channel and reconnect.

Common questions

Can Discord conversations come into my inbox? No. A webhook posts one way, into a channel. It cannot read messages, which is also why it needs no invasive permissions.

Can I post to several servers? Yes. Create a webhook in each channel and connect each one separately.

Will posts mention @everyone? No. They are ordinary messages and ping nobody.

Does the webhook expire? No. It works until somebody deletes it in Discord.