Documentation

Getting started

Adding Summary Bot takes about ten seconds and needs no configuration. This page covers the whole path from invite to first summary, plus what the bot is actually asking your server for.

Add it to a server

You need the Manage Serverpermission in the server you're adding it to — that's Discord's rule for every app, not ours. Open the invite, pick the server, and confirm.

Add Summary Bot to Discord

There is no account to create, no dashboard to log into, and no API key to paste. The server gets 3,000 free credits the moment it joins, which is enough for several real catch-ups before you decide anything.

Whoever adds it gets a DM

The person who invites the bot receives a short setup message with the three things worth knowing. You can ignore it entirely and still use the bot.

The permissions it asks for

Discord shows a consent screen listing what the app is asking for. Summary Bot asks for seven permissions and uses all seven. If you see a request for anything else — Manage Messages, Mention Everyone, Administrator — you are not looking at our invite link.

View Channels: To see that a channel exists at all.
Read Message History: To read the messages it is summarizing.
Send Messages: To reply with the summary.
Embed Links: Summaries are Discord embeds; without this they cannot render.
Attach Files: Only for file output, which is off by default.
Create Public Threads: For the @mention agent's visible working thread.
Send Messages in Threads: To reply inside that thread and in existing threads.

Note what is notthere: it cannot delete anyone's messages, kick or ban, manage roles or channels, or mention everyone.

Channel permissions still win

Granting these at the server level does not give the bot access everywhere. Discord's per-channel overrides apply as normal, so a private channel the bot's role can't see stays invisible to it. On top of that, it re-checks your access before every single read — see Privacy & permissions.

Run /setup at any point and it reports View Channel, Read Message History, Send Messages, and Embed Links per channel, so you can see exactly which one is missing rather than guessing.

Your first catch-up

Go to a channel you've been ignoring and run it with no options at all:

/catchup

No arguments. This is the intended way to use it.

It starts from your last message in that channel, reads everything since, and replies privately — only you can see it. If you have never posted there, it falls back to a sensible recent window and tells you which one it used.

Once that works, these are the only three options most people ever touch:

sinceplain language: since:3 hours, since:yesterday, since:monday. Set your timezone with /settings first, or times are read as UTC.
channel: Summarize a different channel without leaving this one.
public: Post the summary into the channel for everyone instead of just you. Off by default.

There is also a faster way in with nothing to memorise: right-click any message → Apps → Catch up from here. That starts a catch-up at exactly that message.

On the free trial

A trial server can read up to 300 messages per request and use the Cheap and Fast quality tiers. That covers a normal busy channel comfortably. See Credits & billing for what each request actually spends.

Reading the result

The reply is built to be checked, not just read. Every part of it is there for a reason.

The headline: One or two lines: the thing you would want to know first.
Coverage: How many messages it read, how many topics it found, and the exact window — “since your last message · Tuesday 07:04 → now”. If it skipped anything, it says so.
Topics: Each with a title, a short write-up, who was involved, and a jump → link straight to the message it came from. That link is how you verify it.
Buttons: Recast the same summary as shorter, more detailed, decisions only, or the funny bits; expand one topic; ask a follow-up; or share it to the channel.
Credits: What the request cost, and what the server has left.

If you ever want to know how a particular result was produced, /debugexplains the last summary — quality used, coverage, timing, the prompt, and the credits spent. It's open to everyone, not just admins.

Where to go next

How summaries work — where the window comes from, what quality and detail change, and how to reshape a result you already have.
Credits & billing — what a credit is, what each request costs, and what happens at renewal. Worth reading before you subscribe.
Schedules, live & welcomes — how to make recaps arrive without anyone running a command.
Troubleshooting— if a command didn't appear or a summary refused to run.