Automod

Turn it on

It's already on, set to the level you chose in the setup wizard. To change it, open Automod in the dashboard. The switch on the overview card turns it on or off. Anyone who can open the dashboard can change Automod.

How it decides

Automod runs on heat. Heat is a score that rises when someone sends messages and falls when they stop. Reach the limit and Bastion steps in. The full explanation, with worked numbers, is on the heat page.

When a member overheats, Bastion:

1. Times the member out. A few reasons can be set to kick or ban instead. See A different punishment for each reason, below.
2. Deletes their recent messages in that channel.
3. Gives them a strike.
4. Tells them why in a private message, as long as Tell people when they are punished is on. That switch is on the Moderation page.
5. Saves a case and posts what happened in your log channel.

Filters

Each filter is one thing that adds heat. Switch off any you don't want.

Relaxed switches off the capitals and emoji filters. Strict switches on Any link at all. The exact heat for each filter is on the heat page.

How scam links are spotted

• Bastion checks every link against a public list of known scam sites. It fetches a fresh copy every 6 hours.
• It also catches misspellings of Discord and Steam addresses, and addresses that mix those names with words like gift, free or nitro.
• Real Discord and Steam addresses are never flagged.
• The exceptions further down this page never allow a scam link. Only the ignore lists do, because they switch Automod off completely for a role or channel.

Blocked words and websites

Switch the Blocked words filter on first. The four word settings only appear once it's on.

• Block slurs. A ready-made list of hateful slurs. You don't have to type them. Off by default.
• Block swearing. A ready-made list of common swear words. Off by default.
• Blocked words. Up to 200 words or short phrases of your own, 2 to 40 characters each. They match whole words only, so blocking sell doesn't catch seller. The ready-made lists match whole words too.
• Blocked anywhere in a word. Up to 100 pieces of text that are caught wherever they appear. Add berry and strawberry is caught too. Spaces and symbols between the letters don't help the sender.
• Blocked websites. Up to 200 sites, written like example.com. Subdomains are covered too. A blocked website is an instant timeout and works even when the Any link at all filter is off.

The ready-made lists are never shown to anyone. To block a message before it's even posted, add a rule on the Discord AutoMod page as well.

Bastion strips invisible characters and fancy look-alike lettering before it checks a message. Invite links are still caught when they're spaced out or written with the word dot. Links hidden inside embeds are checked as well.

A different punishment for each reason

Most spam earns a timeout. Six reasons can be stricter. In the dashboard they're in the group What happens for the serious ones.

• Bastion looks at the message that pushed the member over the limit and takes its biggest reason. If that reason is one of the six, its punishment is used. Anything else is a timeout.
• Before a kick or ban, the member is told why in a private message, as long as Tell people when they are punished is on.
• A ban also removes the member's messages from the last hour, as long as Delete the spam is on.
• If Bastion can't kick or ban the member, it times them out instead and the log says so.
• Every punishment is a strike, whichever kind it is.

For example, set A blocked word to Kick them. Someone posts a word on your list twice in a couple of seconds, overheats, and is kicked instead of timed out.

Strikes and timeouts

A strike is one automod punishment. Strikes make the next timeout longer.

28 days is the longest timeout Discord allows. A member's strikes are forgotten one hour after their last one. Strikes are saved, so they survive a restart of the bot. The saved record holds only the server, the member and the count, and it deletes itself after that hour. See privacy and data.

Advanced settings

Exemptions

The owner and trusted people are always ignored. So is anyone with Manage Messages or Administrator, anyone holding a moderator role, and other bots. Use the ignore lists for anyone else who should be skipped, and for places where flooding is the point, such as a bot commands channel or a counting game.

Exceptions for one thing

The ignore lists switch Automod off completely for a role or a channel. Often you only want to allow one thing in one place, such as invites in a partners channel. That's what the group Exceptions for one thing is for. It's under Advanced settings.

Everything else still counts. In a partners channel, invites are fine but pinging 10 people is still a timeout. Picking a category covers every channel inside it, and threads follow their channel. You can pick up to 50 channels and 25 roles for each setting.

Ping flood lockdown

Automod deals with one member at a time. If many accounts ping at once, switch on Lock the server on a ping flood. At 50 pings within 5 seconds, Bastion locks every channel, then unlocks them 10 minutes later. It's free and off by default. See ping flood lockdown.

Raid panic (Pro)

When several people spam at once, it's a raid, not one rude member. With raid panic on, 3 members overheating within 30 seconds puts automod on high alert for 10 minutes. While it lasts, anyone who joined the server in the last 24 hours is timed out the moment they post. All three numbers can be changed: 2 to 20 people, 5 to 300 seconds and 1 to 120 minutes. Raid panic and custom heat numbers are part of Pro.