How to Get Discord Templates Including Bot Setup Instructions

People looking for a template usually want more than a channel list. They want the finished server: the layout, the roles, and the bots already set up and working. That last part is the one no template can deliver, and it is worth understanding why before you go looking for one that claims to.

What a template actually carries

A Discord server template is a description of structure. It holds:

• channels and categories, with their names, topics and order
• roles, with their colours, ordering and permissions
• permission overwrites, so private channels stay private
• a handful of server settings

That is a complete description of the shape of a server. It is not a description of what runs inside it.

What it cannot carry

Bot configuration. Prefixes, custom commands, autorole rules, logging targets, level-up messages, ticket panels: all of that lives on the bot’s own servers, keyed to your server’s ID. Discord’s template format has no field for it and no way to reach it.

Messages. Templates carry no message history, which means no pinned setup guide and no welcome post.

Anything tied to a member. Role assignments, nicknames and bans belong to people, and the people are not part of the template.

There are good reasons for the first one in particular. Bot settings often include tokens, webhook URLs and moderation logs, none of which should travel inside a file that anyone can load. A template that could carry them would be a credential leak waiting to happen.

What good templates do instead

Since the configuration cannot travel, the instructions do. The templates worth loading use the structure itself to tell you what to set up:

Channel topics as documentation. A #bot-commands channel whose topic reads “invite a moderation bot and give it the Bot role” survives the template, because the topic is part of the channel.

Roles created ahead of the bots. A template that already has a Bot role positioned above the member roles saves you working out the hierarchy yourself. Drop each bot into it as you invite it.

A naming convention you can follow. Channels named for their purpose, like #mod-log or #join-leave, tell you what to point each bot at without a word of explanation.

A description that names what is needed. The listing’s description is the one place a template author can write prose. The good ones use it to say which kinds of bot the layout expects.

Setting up the bots after you load

1. Read the description before loading. It is the only part of a listing that can tell you what the template assumes.
2. Load the template. Run /backup create first, then /template load with the code. See loading a template on an existing server for the full procedure.
3. Invite the bots. Work through the channels that are obviously waiting for one, and check the channel topics for hints from the author.
4. Put each bot in its role. If the template made a bot role, use it. It is already positioned correctly, which is most of the work.
5. Configure each bot in its own dashboard. This is the manual part, and there is no way around it. Point logging bots at the log channels the template created, set up autorole against the member role, and so on.
6. Test before you open the doors. Run one command per bot and check it answers in the channel you expect.

Publishing a template other people can use

If you are on the other side of this and sharing your own layout with /template create, a few things make yours far more useful than average:

• Write the description as instructions, not as marketing. “Needs a moderation bot with access to #mod-log” is worth more than “the best gaming server layout”.
• Put setup notes in channel topics. They travel with the template. Nothing else you write does.
• Include the bot roles, positioned correctly, so nobody has to work out the hierarchy from scratch.
• Prune before you publish. Every channel someone has to delete is a channel that made your template worse.

When you want the messages too

If what you actually want is to move a fully configured server, rather than to share a layout publicly, a template is the wrong tool. A backup is the right one: with Premium it carries messages as well as structure, so pinned setup guides and welcome posts come across with everything else. The bot configuration still does not, for all the reasons above, but the instructions your members read do.

In short

No template configures your bots, and any listing that claims to is describing its channel layout. Look for templates that document themselves in channel topics and descriptions, invite the bots yourself, and use the roles the template already made. If you are publishing one, write the description as if somebody is going to follow it, because they are.

Browse the gallery to find a layout to start from.