Can I use my own bot?

Can I use my own bot?

Yes — on Starter, Growth, and Scale plans, you can connect your own Discord bot application. Onyx will then respond under your bot's name and avatar instead of the shared Onyx identity.

Hobby vs. paid plans

On the Hobby (free) plan, Onyx uses a shared bot. All free-tier servers share the same Discord bot identity — your community sees responses from "Onyx."

On any paid plan, you bring your own Discord application. Your community sees a bot named whatever you choose, with your avatar, fully branded to your product.

What you need

To use a custom bot, you need:

• A Discord application created in the Discord Developer Portal
• The bot's Token
• The Message Content Intent enabled for your bot (required for it to read messages)

How to set it up

1. Go to the Discord Developer Portal and create a new application.
2. Under the Bot tab, add a bot user. Set its username and upload your avatar.
3. Under Privileged Gateway Intents, enable Message Content Intent. This is required — without it, the bot cannot read messages.
4. Copy the bot Token.
5. In the Onyx dashboard, go to Configuration and enter your Token. Onyx validates it and stores it securely.
6. Invite your bot to your Discord server using its OAuth2 URL. Your bot must be in the server before Onyx can use it.
7. Back in the Onyx dashboard, select the channels you want Onyx to monitor.
8. If the shared Onyx bot is still in the same server, remove it so only your custom bot is listening and replying.

Token security

Your bot token is encrypted with AES-256 before being stored — it is never exposed in the Onyx dashboard after saving. You can update or rotate your token at any time from the Configuration page.