openclaw - 💡(How to fix) Fix Discord: Replace requireMention/users with bypass/mention/deny access lists with role support and per-channel overrides [1 participants]

Problem

Currently, Discord guild config offers requireMention (boolean) and users (allowlist). This creates an all-or-nothing situation:

• requireMention: false + users: [owner] → only owner can interact, no mention needed, but everyone else is locked out entirely
• requireMention: true + users: [] → anyone can @mention, but the owner also has to @mention
• No way to say "I can talk freely, everyone else needs to @mention"

Proposal

Replace requireMention (boolean) and users (flat list) with three access lists, role references, and per-channel overrides.

Guild-level config

guilds: {
  "<guild_id>": {
    // Messages always processed (no @mention needed)
    bypass: ["414984456970174464", "role:123456789", "perm:admin"],
    
    // Messages processed only when @mentioning the bot
    mention: ["all"],
    
    // Never processed, regardless of other lists (highest priority)
    deny: ["user_id_of_spammer", "role:999888777"],
  }
}

Per-channel overrides

Inherits from guild level. Channel-level lists merge with (add to) guild defaults.

guilds: {
  "<guild_id>": {
    bypass: ["414984456970174464"],
    mention: ["all"],
    
    channels: {
      // Engineering channel: team leads can bypass too
      "1385666656134496317": {
        bypass: ["role:team-lead-role-id"],
      },
      
      // Announcements: bot is read-only, nobody triggers it
      "1385665833803579512": {
        deny: ["all"],
      },
    }
  }
}

Channel-level lists add to guild-level lists (union). To fully override instead of merging, a channel can set inherit: false.

Semantics

• deny — highest priority. Message ignored entirely, even if sender is in bypass or mention
• bypass — sender's messages always processed, no @mention required. Implicitly grants mention access
• mention — sender's messages processed only when @mentioning the bot
• Not in any list → message ignored
• Empty or omitted → nobody

Special values

Permission shortcuts (perm:*) resolve against Discord's permission flags at message time, so they stay current without maintaining user/role lists. Only a small set of meaningful permission levels need to be supported — not every Discord permission flag.

Evaluation order

1. Is sender in deny?       → IGNORE
2. Is sender in bypass?     → PROCESS (no mention check)
3. Is sender in mention?    → CHECK for @mention, process if found
4. Otherwise                → IGNORE

Example configs

Owner talks freely, team can @mention:

{
  bypass: ["414984456970174464"],
  mention: ["all"],
}

Owner + admins bypass, everyone else @mentions, block a bot:

{
  bypass: ["414984456970174464", "perm:admin"],
  mention: ["all"],
  deny: ["bot_user_id"],
}

Locked down — only specific role can @mention:

{
  mention: ["role:123456789"],
}

Backward compatibility

Auto-migrate existing configs:

Old fields continue to work during a deprecation period, with a warning logged on startup.

Implementation notes

• Role/permission resolution uses guild member data already available from the Discord gateway — no extra API calls needed
• Per-channel overrides follow the same pattern as existing channels.* config (tools, skills, etc.)
• deny is evaluated first, making it simple to carve out exceptions without complex precedence rules