Discord · api · fg-0439

Discord bot can send messages in a channel but gets Missing Permissions when replying

DiscordAPIError[50013]: Missing Permissions on message.reply()

Verified 2026-10-15 · Confirmed by 0 builders · Trust 50/100

Cause

Replying to a message needs READ_MESSAGE_HISTORY in addition to SEND_MESSAGES, and reading past messages needs it too. Role setups that grant only View Channel and Send Messages miss it.

Fix

Grant Read Message History to the bot role or channel overwrite, or fall back to channel.send when the permission is missing.

Apply

if (!message.channel.permissionsFor(client.user).has(PermissionFlagsBits.ReadMessageHistory)) await message.channel.send(text);
else await message.reply(text);

Affects: Discord API v10 create message with message_reference, as of 2026-10

Sources

Have your agent know this before it fails

claude mcp add --transport http footgun https://getfootgun.com/api/mcp