Understanding notation

Throughout out the discord.js docs and when asking for help on the official server, you will run into many different kinds of notations. To help you understand the texts that you read, we will be going over some common notations.


Always keep in mind that notation is not always rigorous. There will be typos, misunderstandings, or context that will cause notation to differ from the usual meanings.


Some common notations are used to refer to a class or the properties, methods, or events of a class. There are many variations on these notations, and they are very flexible depending on the person, so use your best judgement when reading them.

The notation <Class> means an instance of the Class class. For example, a snippet like <Message>.reply('hello') is asking you to replace <Message> with some value that is an instance of Message, e.g. msg.reply('hello'). It could also just be a placeholder, e.g. <id> would mean a placeholder for some ID.

The notation Class#foo can refer to the foo property, method, or event of the Class class. Specifically which one the writer meant needs to be determined from context. For example:

  • Message#author, means that you should refer to the author property on a Message.
  • TextChannel#send, means that you should refer to the send method on a TextChannel.
  • Client#message, means that you should refer to the message event on a Client.


Remember that this notation is not valid JavaScript, it is a shorthand to refer to a certain piece of code.

Sometimes, the notation is extended, which can help you determine which one the writer meant. For example, TextChannel#send(content, options) is definitely a method of TextChannel, since it uses function notation. And, Client#event:message is an event, since it says that it is an event.

The important thing to take away from this notation is that the # symbol signifies that the property, method, or event can only be accessed through an instance of the class. Unfortunately, this notation is often abused, e.g. <Message>#send (<Message> is already an instance so this makes no sense), or Util#resolveColor (resolveColor is a static method, this should be written Util.resolveColor), so always refer back to the docs if you are confused.

An example of where this notation is used is in the documentation's search feature.

Docs search

Notice the use of the . operator for the static method, Role.comparePositions and the # notation for the method, Role#comparePositionsTo.


In the discord.js docs, there are type signatures everywhere, such as in properties, parameters, or return values. If you do not come from a statically typed language, you may not know what certain notations mean.

The symbol * means any type. For example, methods that return * means that they can return anything, and a parameter of type * can be anything.

The symbol ? means that the type is nullable. You can see it before or after the type (e.g. ?T or T?). What this symbol means is that the value can be of the type T or it can be null. An example is the property GuildMember#nickname which has the type ?string since a member may or may not have a nickname.

The expression T[] means an array of T. You can sometimes see multiple brackets [], meaning that the array is multi-dimensional, e.g. string[][].

The expression ...T signifies a rest parameter of type T. This means that the function can take any amount of arguments, and all those arguments must be of the type T.

The operator |, which can be read as "or", creates a union type, e.g. A|B|C. Simply, it means the value can be of any one of the types given.

The angle brackets <> are used for generic types or parameterized types. This means a type that uses another type(s). The notation looks like A<B> where A is the type and B is a type parameter. If this is hard to follow, it is enough to keep in mind that whenever you see A<B> you can think an A that contains B. Examples:

  • Array<String> means an array of strings.
  • Promise<User> means a Promise that contains a User.
  • Array<Promise<User|GuildMember>> would be an array of Promises each containing a User or a GuildMember.
  • Collection<Snowflake, User> would be a Collection, containing key-value pairs where the keys are Snowflakes, and the values are Users.

TextChannel#send on the docs

In this piece of the docs, you can see three type signatures, StringResolvable, MessageOptions or MessageAdditions, and Promise<(Message|Array<Message>)>. The meaning of the word "or" here is the same as |.