If your team uses Discord to communicate, setting up a GitHub Discord webhook is one of the quickest ways to keep everyone in the loop. Instead of checking GitHub manually, you get real-time notifications for commits, pull requests, issues, and more — directly in a Discord channel.

The setup takes less than five minutes. Here’s how to do it.

Prerequisites

Before you start, make sure you have:

  • A Discord server where you have the “Manage Webhooks” permission (or admin access)
  • A GitHub repository where you have admin access (to add webhooks)

That’s it. No bots to install, no apps to configure.

Step 1: Create a Discord Webhook

First, you need to create a webhook in the Discord channel where you want to receive GitHub notifications.

  1. Open your Discord server and go to the channel you want to use
  2. Click on Edit Channel (the gear icon next to the channel name)
  3. Go to Integrations > Webhooks
  4. Click New Webhook
  5. Give it a name (e.g. “GitHub”) and optionally set a custom avatar
  6. Click Copy Webhook URL

Save this URL somewhere — you’ll need it in the next step.

Important: Treat this webhook URL like a password. Anyone with this URL can send messages to your Discord channel. Never commit it to a public repository or share it publicly.

Step 2: Add the Webhook to GitHub

Now head over to your GitHub repository.

  1. Go to Settings > Webhooks > Add webhook
  2. In the Payload URL field, paste your Discord webhook URL and append /github to the end

For example, if your Discord webhook URL is:

https://discord.com/api/webhooks/123456789/abcdefg

Then your payload URL should be:

https://discord.com/api/webhooks/123456789/abcdefg/github

The /github suffix is critical — it tells Discord to format incoming GitHub payloads as nice embed messages instead of raw JSON.

  1. Set Content type to application/json
  2. Under “Which events would you like to trigger this webhook?”, choose either Send me everything or Let me select individual events (more on that below)
  3. Make sure Active is checked
  4. Click Add webhook

Step 3: Test It

To verify everything is working, the easiest way is to simply star your repository on GitHub (or unstar and re-star it). You should see a notification pop up in your Discord channel almost instantly.

Alternatively, push a commit or open an issue — any event you’ve subscribed to should trigger a notification.

If nothing shows up, jump to the Troubleshooting section below.

Filtering Events

Receiving every single GitHub event can get noisy, especially on active repositories. Instead of “Send me everything”, you can select specific events when configuring the webhook:

  • Pushes — get notified on every push to the repo
  • Pull requests — track when PRs are opened, closed, or merged
  • Issues — stay on top of new bug reports and feature requests
  • Issue comments — follow discussions on issues and PRs
  • Releases — know when a new version is published

Pick only the events that matter to your team. You can always go back to the webhook settings on GitHub and adjust this later.

Sending to Discord Forum Threads

If you’re using Discord forum channels, you can route GitHub notifications to a specific thread by appending the thread ID as a query parameter:

https://discord.com/api/webhooks/123456789/abcdefg/github?thread_id=THREAD_ID

Replace THREAD_ID with the actual ID of the forum thread. To get a thread ID, enable Developer Mode in Discord settings, then right-click the thread and select Copy ID.

Troubleshooting

If your notifications aren’t showing up, check these common issues:

  • Missing /github suffix — This is the most common mistake. Without /github at the end of the webhook URL, Discord receives raw JSON and doesn’t know how to display it. Double-check your payload URL in GitHub webhook settings.
  • Wrong content type — Make sure the content type is set to application/json, not application/x-www-form-urlencoded.
  • Permission issues — Verify that the webhook still exists in your Discord channel settings. If someone deleted it, GitHub will get a 404 response and eventually disable the webhook.
  • Commit descriptions not showing — Discord’s GitHub integration only displays a limited preview. Long commit messages get truncated, and some event types have minimal formatting. This is a Discord limitation.
  • GitHub shows delivery failures — Go to your repo’s Settings > Webhooks, click on the webhook, and scroll down to Recent Deliveries. You can inspect the request/response to see what went wrong.

Wrapping Up

Setting up a GitHub Discord webhook takes just a few minutes and gives your team instant visibility into repository activity. It’s one of the simplest DevOps automations you can set up — no third-party bots or services required.

If you need more advanced filtering or custom message formatting, consider looking into GitHub Actions with a Discord webhook action, but for most teams the built-in integration is more than enough.