diff --git a/veans/internal/client/routes.go b/veans/internal/client/routes.go
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..a30c7f960
--- /dev/null
+++ b/veans/internal/client/routes.go
@@ -0,0 +1,64 @@
+package client
+
+import "context"
+
+// RouteGroup mirrors models.APITokenRoute on the wire — the per-action
+// detail object is opaque to us.
+type RouteGroup map[string]struct {
+	Path   string `json:"path"`
+	Method string `json:"method"`
+}
+
+// Routes returns the API token route map. Used during bootstrap to
+// negotiate exactly which permission groups+actions exist on this Vikunja
+// instance, so the bot's API token only requests scopes the server knows
+// about — avoiding hard-coding a permission list that could drift.
+func (c *Client) Routes(ctx context.Context) (map[string]RouteGroup, error) {
+	out := map[string]RouteGroup{}
+	if err := c.Do(ctx, "GET", "/routes", nil, nil, &out); err != nil {
+		return nil, err
+	}
+	return out, nil
+}
+
+// PermissionsForBot picks a curated subset of route groups the veans bot
+// needs and projects the available actions of each. Groups not present on
+// the server are silently dropped, so the resulting permission map is
+// always valid for PUT /tokens regardless of Vikunja version.
+//
+// The set is intentionally tasks-centric — the bot doesn't need to manage
+// users, teams, or webhooks. We grant `read_one`/`read_all` on projects so
+// the bot can resolve PROJ-NN and #NN identifiers, but no project mutation.
+func PermissionsForBot(routes map[string]RouteGroup) map[string][]string {
+	wanted := map[string][]string{
+		"tasks":            {"read_one", "read_all", "create", "update", "delete"},
+		"projects":         {"read_one", "read_all"},
+		"projects_views":   {"read_one", "read_all"},
+		"buckets":          {"read_one", "read_all", "create", "update", "delete"},
+		"labels":           {"read_one", "read_all", "create", "update", "delete"},
+		"comments":         {"read_one", "read_all", "create", "update", "delete"},
+		"tasks_comments":   {"read_one", "read_all", "create", "update", "delete"},
+		"relations":        {"create", "delete"},
+		"tasks_relations":  {"create", "delete"},
+		"assignees":        {"read_all", "create", "delete"},
+		"tasks_assignees":  {"read_all", "create", "delete"},
+		"tasks_labels":     {"create", "delete", "read_all"},
+	}
+	out := map[string][]string{}
+	for group, actions := range wanted {
+		avail, ok := routes[group]
+		if !ok {
+			continue
+		}
+		var picked []string
+		for _, a := range actions {
+			if _, has := avail[a]; has {
+				picked = append(picked, a)
+			}
+		}
+		if len(picked) > 0 {
+			out[group] = picked
+		}
+	}
+	return out
+}
diff --git a/veans/internal/client/routes_test.go b/veans/internal/client/routes_test.go
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..168a25018
--- /dev/null
+++ b/veans/internal/client/routes_test.go
@@ -0,0 +1,47 @@
+package client
+
+import "testing"
+
+func TestPermissionsForBot_DropsUnknownGroups(t *testing.T) {
+	// Server only exposes a subset of what we ask for.
+	server := map[string]RouteGroup{
+		"tasks": {
+			"read_one":  {},
+			"read_all":  {},
+			"create":    {},
+			"update":    {},
+			// "delete" intentionally absent
+		},
+		"projects": {
+			"read_one": {},
+			"read_all": {},
+		},
+		// no "labels", no "comments", etc.
+	}
+	got := PermissionsForBot(server)
+
+	if _, ok := got["tasks"]; !ok {
+		t.Fatalf("expected tasks group in result")
+	}
+	for _, a := range got["tasks"] {
+		if a == "delete" {
+			t.Errorf("delete should have been dropped")
+		}
+	}
+	if _, ok := got["projects"]; !ok {
+		t.Fatalf("expected projects group")
+	}
+	if _, ok := got["labels"]; ok {
+		t.Errorf("labels was not on server, should not appear in result")
+	}
+	if _, ok := got["nonexistent_group"]; ok {
+		t.Errorf("phantom group leaked into result")
+	}
+}
+
+func TestPermissionsForBot_EmptyWhenServerIsEmpty(t *testing.T) {
+	got := PermissionsForBot(map[string]RouteGroup{})
+	if len(got) != 0 {
+		t.Fatalf("expected empty map, got %v", got)
+	}
+}