Starts a giveaway right away in the channel where you run the command. The bot posts the giveaway there and confirms privately: "✅ Giveaway #12 started. Watch live page: https://..." The link is left out when the giveaway gets no Watch live page. The number is the giveaway id you pass to the other /giveaway commands.
Before anything is created the bot checks that the Giveaways service is enabled for the server ("The Giveaways service is not enabled here.") and that you hold Manage Server, Administrator or the giveaway host role ("You need Manage Server or the giveaway host role to do that."). It then checks the server's limits: by default 25 live or scheduled giveaways at a time and 50 created in any 24 hours. Past either limit you get "⚠️ Too many active giveaways in this server (limit 25). End or cancel one first." or "⚠️ Daily create limit reached (50/24h). Try again later."
duration takes a number with a unit: 45s, 30m, 2h, 1d. Decimals work, so 1.5h is ninety minutes. A bare number means minutes. Anything under 30 seconds, or anything the bot cannot read, is refused with "Invalid duration. Use e.g. 30m, 2h, 1d. Minimum 30 seconds." The giveaway ends that long after the command runs.
For a single prize, fill prize and, if you want more than one winner, winners (1 to 100, default 1). For several prizes, leave prize blank and fill tiers instead: rank:count:prize, with a | between prizes, for example 1:1:RTX 4090|2:2:$50 card. Rank 1 is the 1st prize. Ranks run 1 to 20 and counts 1 to 100. Prize text takes up to 400 characters, and each rank may appear once ("Duplicate rank 1 in tiers. Each rank must appear once."). When tiers is filled, prize and winners are ignored. With neither filled the bot answers "Either prize or tiers must be provided."
Members enter the way the server's settings say a new giveaway starts (Settings, The basics): the Enter button unless that was changed, a reaction with the server's emoji or either one. For a reaction the bot adds the emoji to its post, and removing the reaction takes the entry back.
Set drop to yes to make it first come, first served. There is no draw: the first members to press Enter win on the spot, one prize each. The first to click get the 1st prize. The post shows "⚡ First come, first served: 3 winners. The first to click Enter win right away." with a bar and the winners so far. It finishes when the last prize is taken, or at the end time with whoever has one by then. A member who clicks after that is told "All the prizes are taken. You are still entered, so you can win if the host draws again." Set drop to no to keep the giveaway from being first come, first served when the server's setting says it should be.
The post shows the prizes, a Winners count, the end time, the host and a running entry count, plus a "Watch live" link when the giveaway has a Watch live page. When the time is up the winners are drawn on their own. The post is replaced by the results, which ping them, and each winner is sent a DM.
Good to know
- The server's settings decide how people enter, the reaction emoji, the giveaway's own wait for past winners, whether it can be drawn again and whether it gets a Watch live page (Settings, The basics and Fair play).
- A giveaway made this way has no description, no rules for who can enter and no extra chances. For those, and for things to do, invite friends, prize codes, a later start, winners who have to claim or a role for the winners, make it with New giveaway on the dashboard instead.
- Its page on the dashboard can still change its words, end time, look and replies while it runs.
- "Giveaway created but failed to post the message. Check bot permissions." means the bot could not post in that channel. Check that it can view the channel, send messages with embeds and add reactions there.
- Related: /giveaway end, /giveaway reroll, /giveaway cancel, /giveaway info.