Create a Discord server: set up categories, channels, roles and permissions properly

Creating a Discord server takes a minute. Building it so newcomers find their way, your team can work and nothing private ends up public takes a lot longer. Most problems on grown servers have the same root: channels without order, roles without a clear ranking, and permissions someone once set one by one in every channel.

In this guide you'll create a Discord server and build it step by step: from creating it, through a sensible category structure, to roles, permissions and Discord's Community features. By the end you'll have a structure that grows with you, and you'll know how to let a Lizbot template set it up automatically in a few minutes.

Plan first, click later

Before you create your first channel, answer three questions:

• What is the server for? A gaming group, a creator community, a study group or customer support each need different areas.
• Who is on the team? Even two role levels (moderation and leadership) save a lot of trouble later.
• What can newcomers see? Everything right away, or only after verification?

Write the answers down. Categories, roles and permissions follow almost by themselves.

1. Create the server

Click the plus icon at the bottom of the server list on the left, choose "Create My Own", then whether the server is for you and your friends or for a club or community. Give it a name and an icon. You can change both later in the server settings under Overview.

Discord creates a few default channels automatically. Don't delete them right away; replace them with your structure in the next step.

2. Categories as the backbone

Categories are folders for channels. They keep the server tidy, and above all they pass on permissions: channels synced with their category inherit its permissions. That way you set permissions once per area instead of in every channel.

A proven basic structure:

Start small. Five lively channels beat twenty empty ones. For inspiration on which channels are really worth it, see the Discord channel ideas. A category can hold up to 50 channels and a server up to 500 in total, but you should never come close to those limits.

3. Choose the right channel types

• Text channel: for conversation. Slowmode calms down busy channels, for example 10 seconds for memes.
• Voice channel: for talking and screen sharing.
• Forum: for recurring questions, group search or feedback. Every post is its own thread, so nothing gets lost in the chat history. How to set one up is covered in the guide to Discord forum channels.
• Announcement channel: messages can be followed by other servers. This type is only available once Community features are on (see step 6).
• Stage channel: for events with speakers and an audience, also Community servers only.

Keep channel names short and clear so everyone knows what goes where.

4. Create roles in the right order

You create roles in the server settings under Roles. The order matters: anyone with Manage Roles can only edit and assign roles below their own highest role. The same applies to bots.

A sensible order from top to bottom:

• Leadership (founder or owner team)
• Admin
• Moderator
• Helper or Support
• bot roles that should assign roles go above the roles they assign
• special roles such as Server Booster or level roles
• Member
• ping and interest roles without permissions of their own

How to grant permissions per role and let members pick roles themselves is covered in the guide to setting up Discord roles.

5. Set permissions: a baseline plus exceptions

Discord permissions work on two levels: server-wide through roles, and per category or channel through channel permission overwrites. Follow this pattern:

• Keep @everyone lean: everyone has the @everyone role. Give it only the basics that really everyone needs.
• Control areas through categories: for the staff category, deny @everyone the View Channel permission and allow it for the staff roles.
• Read-only channels: in rules and announcements, deny @everyone sending messages.
• Hand out Administrator sparingly: anyone with Administrator bypasses every channel overwrite and sees every channel. That belongs with one or two people only.

Check your permissions with "View Server As Role" in the role settings. It shows you the server exactly as a regular member sees it.

6. Turn on Community features

In the server settings you can turn your server into a Community server. Discord requires a verification level where members have a verified email, an explicit media content filter, a rules channel and a channel for community updates from Discord.

In return you get announcement and stage channels, Server Insights and Onboarding, among other things. With Onboarding, newcomers answer a few questions when they join. Depending on their answers they see matching channels and get matching roles. Set the default channels there that everyone should see. The guide to setting up Discord Onboarding walks you through questions, answers and default channels step by step.

Also switch on Discord's built-in AutoMod. It filters keywords, spam and mass mentions directly on Discord. How to combine it with Lizbot is covered in the AutoMod guide.

7. Let Lizbot build the structure

You can leave steps 2 to 5 to Lizbot. In the dashboard, the setup assistant starts for a new server. You pick a language and starting point, then one of 12 ready-made templates, such as Gaming Community, Creator Community, Study Group or Minimal. Lizbot shows you beforehand which roles and channels will be created and which it reuses, then builds everything: categories, channels, roles in the right order, permissions for staff areas, rules and log channels. What the templates contain exactly is covered in the server template guide.

Other routes:

• Server templates: under Tools in the Server templates tab you can apply templates at any time, save your server as a custom template or share it with a code.
• Custom structure: via Setup assistant in the sidebar, "Custom structure (advanced)" lets you define roles, channels and modules yourself, check the preview and run the plan.
• On Discord: /build preview shows a template, /build apply applies it and /build undo reverts the last build, as long as it's no older than 7 days.

8. Final touches before launch

• Set up the welcome channel and a welcome message.
• Add verification if your server is public.
• Create a backup once the structure is in place.
• Ask a test person without a staff role to click through the server once.

Checklist

• purpose, staff roles and newcomer visibility decided
• categories for info, community, voice and staff created
• channels synced with their category
• roles sorted sensibly from top to bottom
• @everyone has only basic permissions
• staff category hidden from @everyone
• Administrator with one or two people only
• Community features and Onboarding reviewed
• backup created after the build

Common mistakes

• Permissions per channel instead of per category: individual overwrites across many channels get messy fast. Set permissions on the category and sync the channels.
• Too many channels at launch: empty channels make a server look dead. Expand only when a topic needs its own channel.
• Bot role at the bottom: a bot can't assign roles above its own. Move the bot role above the roles it should manage.
• Administrator for moderators: moderators need permissions like Manage Messages or Ban Members, not Administrator.
• Never tested as a member: what you see as the owner says nothing about what newcomers see. Use "View Server As Role".