# Components & Modals

![Discord Bots & Companion Apps Hero Image](../img/images/headers/docs-botsapp-hero.png)

Discord's component system lets your app build rich, interactive UI directly inside the Discord client, with no custom frontend needed.

## Message Components

Message Components are interactive and layout elements attached to messages your app sends. Discord supports three categories:

- **Layout components** for organizing content
- **Content components** for displaying text and media
- **Interactive components** like buttons, select menus, and text inputs that users can act on

Components are sent as structured data alongside your message and rendered natively in the Discord client.

## Modals

Modals are form-like overlays that your app can present to users in response to an interaction, such as a button click, slash command, or select menu selection. They collect freeform input through text fields and are a natural fit for multi-field data entry, confirmations, bug reports, or any configuration flow that needs more than a single tap to complete.

Unlike message components, modals aren't attached to a message. They're sent as an interaction response and appear as a focused overlay in the client. The user fills in the fields and submits, which triggers a new interaction your app can handle.

## Further Reading

::::card-grid
:::card{title="Components Overview" href="/guides/components-overview"}
Full guide to available component types and how components are sent in messages.
:::

:::card{title="Using Message Components" href="/guides/components-using-message-components"}
A guide on sending Message Components with code examples.
:::

:::card{title="Using Modal Components" href="/guides/components-using-modal-components"}
A guide on building and displaying Modal Components with code examples.
:::
::::

## Related pages

- [API Reference](./api-reference-index.md)
- [App Fundamentals](./app-fundamentals-index.md)
- [Best Practices](./best-practices-index.md)
- [Bots & Companion Apps](./bots-companion-apps-index.md)
- [Building Games](./building-games-index.md)
- [Building on Discord](./building-on-discord-index.md)
- [Change Log](./change-log-index.md)
- [Communities & Servers](./communities-servers-index.md)
- [Components](./components-index.md)
- [Core Concepts](./core-concepts-index.md)

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