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Discord Bot
Integrations & Sync

Save Articles from Discord

The Lion Reader Discord bot lets you save articles without leaving Discord. When someone shares a link in a channel, just react to the message with the save emoji and the article is automatically saved to your Lion Reader account. The bot extracts URLs from message content, fetches the article, and adds it to your Saved articles.

Custom Lion Reader Emojis

The bot uses a set of custom Lion Reader emojis to communicate save results.

Save to Lion Reader emoji
Save
:savetolionreader:
Saluting Lion Reader emoji
Success
:salutinglionreader:
Crying Lion Reader emoji
Error
:cryinglionreader:

We recommend uploading the Lion Reader logo as a custom emoji named :savetolionreader: and using it as the save trigger instead of the default lion emoji.

Linking Your Account

The bot needs to know which Lion Reader account to save articles to. There are two ways to link your account:

  • Discord OAuth — Sign in to Lion Reader using your Discord account. This is the easiest option — the bot automatically recognizes you by your Discord ID.
  • API token — Use the /link slash command with an API token generated from Settings > API Tokens. This works even if you signed up with email or a different OAuth provider.

How It Works

  1. React to any message containing a URL with the save emoji (default: 🦁)
  2. The bot extracts URLs from the message, filtering out Discord CDN links, Tenor, Giphy, and media file URLs
  3. Each URL is saved using the same saveArticle service as the web UI and MCP server
  4. The bot reacts with saluting lion on success or crying lion on failure

Slash Commands

The bot registers three slash commands:

  • /status — Check if your Discord account is linked to Lion Reader and which method is being used (OAuth or API token)
  • /link [token] — Link your account using an API token from Settings > API Tokens. The token needs the “Save articles” scope.
  • /unlink — Remove your linked API token. If you’re also connected via Discord OAuth, saving will continue to work.

All command responses are ephemeral — only you can see them, so your API token stays private.

Adding the Bot to Your Server

The bot can be added to any Discord server using the invite link in Settings > Discord Bot. It requests only the permissions it needs: viewing channels, sending messages, adding reactions, reading message history, and using external emojis. Once added, anyone in the server who has linked their Lion Reader account can use the save emoji to save articles.

Configuration

Server administrators can customize the bot’s behavior through environment variables:

  • DISCORD_SAVE_EMOJI — The emoji that triggers saving (default: 🦁). We recommend using :savetolionreader: with the Lion Reader logo emoji instead, but this must be configured for each server.
  • DISCORD_SUCCESS_EMOJI — Custom emoji name for successful saves (default: :salutinglionreader:)
  • DISCORD_ERROR_EMOJI — Custom emoji name for failed saves (default: :cryinglionreader:)

The bot is built with discord.js and runs as a standalone process alongside the main application server.