Message Content Deprecation New Deadline - August 31, 2022

[msciotti]

Hey everyone,

Last summer, we shared a big announcement: on April 30, 2022, Message Content would become a Privileged Intent.

This change was for only verified apps, and it meant that over the following nine months, developers would need to migrate to our new best practices on commands (i.e. use Slash Commands, or request and be approved for the Message Intent). This was and still is a significant change for many of you, and one you’ve told us you were anxious about. With that in mind, we have an update about the timeline.

Now that we’ve finished the major feature work required to enable those of you who have not been able to migrate - including massive projects like the new command permissions system (in testing!), Slate v2, a whole set of improvements like attachments, localization (desktop and iOS), autocomplete, channel type restrictions, min/max constraints on numeric option types, and other features like modal interactions and guild locales -- we believe there is a clear pathway to migration for verified apps. That said, we also want to acknowledge two things:

1. Even with the tools and time, migration can still be a big lift for some developers.
2. Users can benefit from more proactive information and education about Slash Commands.

Privacy is paramount for users on Discord, so we want to support you by doing our part to spread awareness about the new way to interact with apps. We want to help your users, and you, feel as confident about Slash Commands as we do. With all this in mind, we have some news to share with you:

👉 🗓️ We have extended the deprecation period for message content by an additional four months. The new deadline is now Wednesday, August 31, 2022, with enforcement starting on Thursday, September 1, 2022. During this time, we’re going to be educating users actively on Slash Commands, from content in our marketing to in-app indicators and prompts.

👉 🗓️ Note that since this milestone is a requirement for the App Directory, that will be moving out to later this year as well.

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What should you do during this additional time?

1. Finish migrating as soon as you can. We want to encourage everyone to work toward the original date, so you can participate in opportunities that require your migration to be completed. Make sure to read our Message Content review policy (https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/4410940809111-Message-Content-Intent-Review-Policy) if you haven’t yet, and if you need the intent and meet the criteria, submit your request ASAP.

2. Try out our new features! Give us feedback in their respective channels, and make new feature requests on GitHub discussions for functionality that would help with your use case.

3. Get ready for discovery. You now have more time for this, as well. Create some new marketing assets for your app, localize your commands -- anything you think puts your best foot forward. If you are verified, you will see an "App Directory" section of the Developer Portal with a checklist of things to complete before you can click Enable Discovery. As always, we’ll post news here as soon as we have rollout timing updates to share.

You all have done such a fantastic job iterating, joining alphas and betas for our features, submitting productive questions to our Q&As, and most importantly being specific about what you need to be successful. Keep it up! As always, thanks for joining us on the journey.

Happy migrating,

• Discord