Discord image message API

Post an image to a Discord channel through an API or MCP server: attachment size and formats, alt text, link embeds, example requests, and errors with fixes.

Beta: you can connect a Discord account and post to it through the API in early access today. It hasn't been proven with a real production post yet. The @turboyap/sdk and @turboyap/mcp packages call the same API. Test mode runs the same requests against a simulated Discord account.

What a Discord image message is

A Discord image message is a message with one image attached, sent to a channel through its webhook. In Turboyap it's type: "image" with one media id, and the caption becomes the message text.

Turboyap uploads the image to Discord as an attachment, with its alt text from alt_text as the attachment's description, so the message keeps its image after Turboyap deletes its own copy.

Limits

What Discord accepts for this post type. Turboyap's planner checks every one of these before a post is scheduled (the same data as platform rules), and each value links to the Discord documentation it comes from.

Compare with other platforms in the social media API limits tracker.

Connect a Discord account

1. Open a connect link (from create_connect_link, or POST /v1/connect_links with { "platform": "discord" }) and continue to Discord.
2. On Discord's own authorization screen, pick the server and the text or announcement channel Turboyap should post to, then authorize. Forum channels aren't supported yet.
3. Discord creates a webhook for that channel and hands it to Turboyap. The account is connected.

Turboyap asks Discord only for the webhook.incoming scope. No bot joins your server, the webhook can post only to the channel you picked, and Turboyap doesn't keep the OAuth access token. Disconnecting the account in Turboyap (DELETE /v1/accounts/:id) deletes the webhook.

An agent can make the connect link and send it to the person who manages the server. New accounts start on autonomy level 1, so agent posts wait for approval.

Example requests

All three do the same thing: upload the media, preview the post with a dry run, then schedule it. The idempotency key makes retries safe: send the same request again with the same key and you get the original post back, not a second one.

Early access: api.turboyap.com is open to early-access users only, and @turboyap/sdk and @turboyap/mcp aren't on npm yet. These examples show the API as built.

curl

# 1. Upload each image. The body is the raw file; Content-Type is its type.
curl https://api.turboyap.com/v1/media \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TURBOYAP_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: image/png" \
  -H "X-Filename: slide-1.png" \
  --data-binary @slide-1.png
# → { "media": { "id": "med_…", "width": 1080, "height": 1920, … }, "deduplicated": false }

# 2. Preview. Remove "dry_run" to create and schedule the post.
curl https://api.turboyap.com/v1/posts \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TURBOYAP_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "type": "image",
    "media_ids": ["med_…"],
    "caption": "Read the label before you buy.",
    "link": { "url": "https://example.com/labels", "title": "How to read an ice cream label" },
    "targets": [{ "account_id": "acct_discord…" }],
    "schedule_at": "2026-10-20T18:00:00-04:00",
    "idempotency_key": "discord-image-message-2026-10-20",
    "dry_run": true
  }'

TypeScript with @turboyap/sdk

import { readFile } from "node:fs/promises";
import { TurboyapClient } from "@turboyap/sdk";

const ty = new TurboyapClient({ apiKey: process.env.TURBOYAP_API_KEY! });
const account = (await ty.listAccounts()).find((a) => a.platform === "discord")!;

const media_ids: string[] = [];
for (const file of ["image.png"]) {
  const { media } = await ty.uploadMedia(await readFile(file), { filename: file, contentType: "image/png" });
  media_ids.push(media.id);
}

const post = {
  type: "image" as const,
  media_ids,
  caption: "Read the label before you buy.",
  link: { "url": "https://example.com/labels", "title": "How to read an ice cream label" },
  targets: [{ account_id: account.id }],
  schedule_at: "2026-10-20T18:00:00-04:00",
  idempotency_key: "discord-image-message-2026-10-20",
};

// Preview first: every problem comes back with a fix.
const preview = await ty.createPost({ ...post, dry_run: true });
if (!preview.ok) throw new Error(preview.errors.map((e) => `${e.code}: ${e.fix}`).join("\n"));

const { post: created } = await ty.createPost(post);
console.log(created.targets[0]?.status, created.targets[0]?.next_step);

Claude Code (MCP)

Add the Turboyap MCP server once, with an agent key from your workspace:

claude mcp add turboyap -e TURBOYAP_API_KEY=ty_agent_… -- npx -y @turboyap/mcp

Then ask:

Post ~/content/label-check.png to our Discord channel tomorrow at 8am ET with the caption "Read the label before you buy." and alt text that describes it. Dry-run first.

The agent calls list_accounts, get_platform_rules, upload_media, create_post with dry_run: true, applies any fixes, calls create_post again to schedule, and reports each account's next_step from get_post. The same server works in Cursor; see the MCP quickstart.

How publishing works

When the scheduled time arrives, Turboyap executes the channel's webhook with ?wait=true, with the images as attachments, so Discord confirms the message and returns its id. Publishing is immediate: the target moves scheduled → publishing → published, and platform_url links to the message. Discord's webhooks have no idempotency key, so if a response is lost Turboyap marks the target unknown_outcome instead of posting again.

Mentions in the text don't notify anyone: Turboyap sends an empty allowed_mentions, so an agent can't ping @everyone.

Images go as attachments, up to 10 per message, each kept under 1 MB so the message fits Discord's 10 MiB default upload limit.

Pass link to add an embed with its title and description. Discord also previews links in the text on its own.

Common errors and fixes

Every error has a code, the field that caused it, and a fix an agent can apply without asking you. A request with several problems returns all of them in issues; a dry run returns them without creating anything.

Errors from Discord itself appear on the target's error with Discord's own code. Turboyap retries rate limits and temporary failures with backoff, and marks the account for reconnection when the webhook is deleted.

Approval and audit

• Level 1, review everything (default): a post an agent schedules starts as pending_approval and waits until a human approves it with a human key (POST /v1/posts/:id/approve). Agent keys can't approve.
• Level 3, full autopilot: agent posts schedule directly. Every action is still logged. Level 2, guardrails, is coming soon.
• Posts created by humans schedule directly at any level.
• Edits re-open review: if an agent changes the caption or time of an approved post on a level-1 account, it goes back to pending_approval.
• Dry runs show the outcome: each target's status_on_create tells the agent whether the post will wait for approval.
• Audit log: every create, approval, edit, publish and failure is recorded with whether a human or an agent did it, the key id, and the MCP client name. The kill switch (POST /v1/workspace/pause) stops every publish to Discord and every other platform at once.

Read more in the autonomy dial.

FAQ

Related

• Discord message API (beta)
• Discord multi-image message API (beta)
• TikTok photo post API
• Instagram image post API
• Bluesky image post API (beta)
• Telegram photo post API (beta)
• Post one slideshow to TikTok and Instagram
• REST API reference
• Platform rules
• Social media API limits tracker

This page as markdown: /api/discord/image-message.md. Everything for LLMs: /llms.txt.