Handling permissions

One of the most basic needs of a Discord bot is to be able to deny command access to users based on their permissions or lack thereof. A common example would be moderation commands. Most people wouldn't want regular users to be able to ban people, so we can restrict usage using the requiredUserPermissions option.

CommonJS

const { Command } = require('@sapphire/framework');
const { PermissionFlagsBits } = require('discord.js');

class BanCommand extends Command {
  constructor(context) {
    super(context, {
      // ...
      requiredUserPermissions: [PermissionFlagsBits.BanMembers]
    });
  }
}
module.exports = {
  BanCommand
};

ESM

import { Command } from '@sapphire/framework';
import { PermissionFlagsBits } from 'discord.js';

export class BanCommand extends Command {
  constructor(context) {
    super(context, {
      // ...
      requiredUserPermissions: [PermissionFlagsBits.BanMembers]
    });
  }
}

TypeScript

import { Command } from '@sapphire/framework';
import { PermissionFlagsBits } from 'discord.js';

export class BanCommand extends Command {
  public constructor(context: Command.LoaderContext) {
    super(context, {
      // ...
      requiredUserPermissions: [PermissionFlagsBits.BanMembers]
    });
  }
}

Users without the "Ban Members" permission will now be unable to use the command!

Handling Client Permissions

It's also a good idea to verify the inverse: does the bot have the "Ban Members" permission? We can use the requiredClientPermissions option the same way to prevent the command from being used if not.

CommonJS

const { Command } = require('@sapphire/framework');
const { PermissionFlagsBits } = require('discord.js');

class BanCommand extends Command {
  constructor(context) {
    super(context, {
      // ...
      requiredUserPermissions: [PermissionFlagsBits.BanMembers],
      requiredClientPermissions: [PermissionFlagsBits.BanMembers]
    });
  }
}
module.exports = {
  BanCommand
};

ESM

import { Command } from '@sapphire/framework';
import { PermissionFlagsBits } from 'discord.js';

export class BanCommand extends Command {
  constructor(context) {
    super(context, {
      // ...
      requiredUserPermissions: [PermissionFlagsBits.BanMembers],
      requiredClientPermissions: [PermissionFlagsBits.BanMembers]
    });
  }
}

TypeScript

import { Command } from '@sapphire/framework';
import { PermissionFlagsBits } from 'discord.js';

export class BanCommand extends Command {
  public constructor(context: Command.LoaderContext) {
    super(context, {
      // ...
      requiredUserPermissions: [PermissionFlagsBits.BanMembers],
      requiredClientPermissions: [PermissionFlagsBits.BanMembers]
    });
  }
}

With these changes, BanCommand now requires the command executor and the client to have the "Ban Members" permission to execute!

tip

To learn how to send a message to the command executor when a precondition fails, see Reporting Precondition Failure.