DisMessage

Pixel-perfect 1:1 Discord message renderer for Python. Render fake Discord conversations to standalone HTML or PNG — including avatars, avatar decorations ("profile effects"), guild tags, role colors, custom emoji, the Verified App badge, and the full Discord markdown set.

DisMessage was built by reverse-engineering Discord's actual DOM structure and CSS class names (extracted from a live page export), so the output is indistinguishable from a real Discord screenshot at a glance.

Features

• Faithful 1:1 layout — uses the exact CSS class names Discord ships (cozy_c19a55, markup__75297, clanTagChiplet_c19a55, etc.) so the rendering matches Discord down to the pixel.
• Avatar decorations ("profile effects") — overlay PNGs that sit on top of the avatar, sized correctly using Discord's --decoration-to-avatar-ratio variable.
• Guild tags (clan tags) — the small chip next to the username with the clan badge image and tag text.
• Verified App badge — the blue "✓ APP" chip that appears on verified bots. Plain "BOT" chip for unverified bots.
• Role colors — username color picked from the highest role with a color.
• Full Discord markdown:
  • **bold**, *italic*, __underline__, ~~strikethrough~~
  • `inline code` and ```code blocks```
  • ||spoilers|| (rendered with hover-to-reveal CSS)
  • # H1, ## H2, ### H3 headers
  • -# subtext (Discord's small grey text)
  • > blockquote
  • <@user>, <#channel>, <@&role> mentions
  • <:name:id> custom emoji (animated and static)
  • Bare URLs auto-linked
• Message grouping — consecutive messages from the same author within 5 minutes are automatically grouped (no repeated avatar/header), matching Discord's behavior.
• Reply references — pass reply_to=... on a Message to render the slim "replying to X" header.
• Themes — dark (default), light, darker.
• Two output formats:
  • render_html() — standalone .html file (no external dependencies, opens in any browser).
  • render_png() — .png image rendered via headless Chromium (Playwright). Great for posting in Discord.
• Optional Discord fetcher — fetch_messages() calls the Discord REST API to pull a real message and auto-resolves its author's avatar, avatar decoration, clan tag, and verified-app flag.

Installation

pip install dismessage httpx playwright
python -m playwright install chromium

(httpx is only needed if you use fetch_messages(). playwright is only needed for PNG output. HTML output works with zero dependencies.)

Quick start

Render a fake conversation

from datetime import datetime, timezone
from dismessage import Author, Message, render_png

alice = Author(
    id="123", name="Alice",
    avatar_url="https://cdn.discordapp.com/avatars/123/abc.webp?size=80",
    avatar_decoration_url="https://cdn.discordapp.com/avatar-decoration-presets/DEF.png?size=80&pas=true",
    clan_tag="myguild",
    clan_badge_url="https://cdn.discordapp.com/clan-badges/456/badge.png?size=16",
)
bob = Author(
    id="456", name="BobBot",
    avatar_url="https://cdn.discordapp.com/avatars/456/xyz.webp?size=80",
    bot=True, verified_app=True,
)

now = datetime.now(timezone.utc)
messages = [
    Message(author=alice, content="hello **world** -# subtext", timestamp=now),
    Message(author=bob,   content="hi `code` and ||spoiler||", timestamp=now),
]

render_png(messages, "out.png", theme="dark")

Fetch and render a real Discord message

from dismessage import fetch_messages, render_png

messages = fetch_messages(
    token="YOUR_BOT_TOKEN",        # or a user token (against ToS)
    channel_id=1532447895683596358,
    message_id=1532447918504804482,
    context_before=2,
    context_after=2,
    guild_id=1532447895683596358,  # required to resolve clan tags
)
render_png(messages, "real_msg.png", theme="dark")

Use it in a discord.py bot

See bot.py for a complete example. The gist:

import discord
from dismessage import Author, Message, render_png

@bot.tree.command()
async def fake(interaction: discord.Interaction, user: discord.User, message: str):
    author = Author(
        id=str(user.id),
        name=user.global_name or user.name,
        avatar_url=user.avatar.url if user.avatar else None,
        bot=user.bot,
    )
    msg = Message(author=author, content=message)
    render_png([msg], "/tmp/fake.png", theme="dark")
    await interaction.response.send_message(file=discord.File("/tmp/fake.png"))

API reference

Author

Message

render_html(messages, output_path=None, *, theme="dark", width=400, group_window_seconds=300)

Render to standalone HTML. If output_path is None, returns the HTML as a string.

render_png(messages, output_path, *, theme="dark", width=400, group_window_seconds=300, device_scale_factor=2.0)

Render to a PNG via headless Chromium. Requires Playwright + Chromium installed.

fetch_messages(token, channel_id, message_id, *, context_before=0, context_after=0, guild_id=None, resolve_clan_tag=True, resolve_avatar_decoration=True)

Fetch a real Discord message (optionally with surrounding context) and return a list of Message objects. The fetcher auto-resolves:

• Author avatar (from avatar hash, with a_ prefix → GIF)
• Avatar decoration (via GET /users/{id}/profile)
• Clan tag + badge (via GET /users/{id}/profile?with_mutual_guilds=true)
• Bot flag (from user.bot)
• Verified app flag (from user.public_flags bit 16)

render_markdown(text)

Convert Discord markdown to HTML. Useful if you want to render just the content without the full message chrome.

Themes

Three built-in themes matching Discord's presets:

• "dark" — #313338 background, light text (Discord's default)
• "darker" — #1e1f22 background (Discord's "Darker" theme)
• "light" — #FFFFFF background, dark text

To customize, monkey-patch dismessage.THEMES["dark"] with your own CSS variable map:

import dismessage
dismessage.THEMES["dark"]["--background-primary"] = "#1a1a1a"

Why does this exist?

For bots that need to render a "fake Discord screenshot" — for moderation logs, joke commands, /fake-message generators, etc. The existing options are all web-based SaaS products with rate limits and watermarks. DisMessage is a pure-Python library you can run locally.

License

MIT.

Contributing

PRs welcome. The repo includes a bot.py example that wires DisMessage into discord.py — feel free to use it as a starting point.