Introduction
Learn what Nowly is, how Discord Rich Presence works, and how Nowly Host connects supported websites to Discord.
What is Nowly?
Nowly shows activity from supported websites in Discord Rich Presence. It uses three visible pieces:
- the Nowly browser extension for Chrome, Chromium, Brave, and Edge
- Nowly Host on Windows or Linux
- installable presences from the Nowly library
What is a Presence?
A presence is a small JavaScript integration for a specific website. It runs when you visit a supported URL, reads useful page state, and sends activity data to the extension.
Presences can display:
- the platform name
- the current video, stream, show, repository, or page title
- author, channel, creator, or project names
- playback timestamps
- platform assets
- buttons that link back to content
How Nowly Works
The browser extension detects supported websites and loads your installed presences. A presence prepares the Discord activity payload.
Nowly Host is the local bridge between the browser and Discord Desktop. It receives activity data from the extension and sends it to Discord locally.
Start Here
Follow the setup flow in this order:
- Install the extension.
- Enable user scripts.
- Install Nowly Host.
- Open Discord Desktop.
- Install a presence.
- Test on a compatible site, such as YouTube.
If anything is missing, open the extension side panel. The diagnostic shows each link separately so you can see exactly what to fix.