This bot automates various moderation tasks in Reddit. Here are the main features:

• Adding posts to a wilds subreddit
  • Whenever a post is removed, the bot will crosspost to a specified wilds subreddit
• Posting comment mod removals to a removals subreddit or Discord channel
  • If a comment moderator removes a post, the bot will crosspost to a specified subreddit and/or message Discord channel
• Handling modmail
  • Bot response to modmail by asking the sender to provide a link to the removed content
• Recording mod actions
  • Mod actions recorded to a Google Sheets spreadsheet

All features are optional.

• Clone the repository: git clone https://github.com/rezl/SubredditWilds.git
• Install the required packages: pip install -r requirements.txt
• Update the config.py file with your Reddit and Discord API credentials
• Override the credentials-user.json with your credentials from Google Cloud Console (or disable this feature in settings.py)
• Set the necessary values in the Settings class in settings.py
• Run the bot: python bot.py

Run the bot with the python main.py command. The bot will start monitoring the specified subreddit and perform the configured actions when necessary.

• is_dry_run: Set to True to prevent any bot actions (report, remove, comments). This is useful for testing purposes.
• check_modmail: Set to True to enable the bot to respond to modmail. (optional)
• comment_mod_permissions: The permissions that comment mods should have. Comment mods are mods that should only remove comments and not posts. (optional)
• comment_mod_whitelist: A whitelist of comment mods who should not have their posts checked. (optional)
• subreddit_wilds: The subreddit where new posts should be added. (optional)
• subreddit_removals: The subreddit where removed posts should be posted. (optional)
• discord_removals_server: The Discord server where the bot should post removed posts. (optional)
• discord_removals_channel: The Discord channel where the bot should post removed posts. (optional)
• google_sheet_id: The Google Sheets ID for mod action recording
• google_sheet_name: The tab name in google_sheet_id for mod actions

• code: https://github.com/rezl/SubredditWilds.git
• Python 3.10+
• praw 6.3.1+

1. Create a Github account.

2. Go here and install Git if you don’t have it already.

3. Assuming you're reading this on the repo page, select ‘fork’ to create a copy of it to your Github account.

4. From your new repo, select Code and then under Clone copy the HTTPS URL (e.g. https://github.com/rezl/SubredditWilds.git) to download a local copy

   

5. Navigate to a folder you want a local copy of the repo to live, and clone the Github repo to your local PC:

   1. It's up to you where to put the repo - recommended in a folder like C:<username>\Documents\ or a new folder, C:<username>\Documents\Programming
   2. git clone <url>
      1. e.g. git clone https://github.com/rezl/SubmissionStatementBot.git
   3. Make note of (copy/paste somewhere) of the folder you clone to for future reference

6. Make note of (copy/paste somewhere) your Reddit app’s Client ID. This the string directly under personal use script. This is your Reddit App Client ID.

7. Make note of (copy/paste somewhere) the URL linking to your repo (e.g. https://github.com/yourusername/collapse). This is your Github Repo URL.

1. Create a new Reddit account with the name you’d like for your bot.

2. Login into your primary Reddit account which moderates your subreddit.

3. Go to https://old.reddit.com/r/YOURSUBREDDIT/about/moderators/ and invite the bot to become a moderator with full permissions.

4. Log back into the bot’s account and accept the invitation.

5. Go to https://old.reddit.com/prefs/apps/ and select Create and app

6. Type a name for your app and choose script.

7. Write a short description of what your bot will be doing.

8. Set the about URI to your Github Repo URL.

9. Set the redirect URI to your Heroku Git URL.

10. Select create app.

11. Make note of the secret code for the next steps.

1. Create Google Console project and bot
   1. https://console.cloud.google.com/getting-started
   2. Follow this section of this guide
   3. Copy the bot email for later use (e.g. [email protected])
2. Add bot to Google Sheet
   1. Follow this section of this guide
   2. Add the bot as a test user (and yourself):
      1. Google Cloud Console > APIs & Services > OAuth Consent Screen > (scroll down) Test Users > Add Users
      2. Add emails
3. Download your and the bot credentials file for later use (bot file done in step 1)
   1. Google Cloud Console > APIs & Services > Credentials > OAuth 2.0 Client IDs > far-right button "Download OAuth Client"
      1. Rename this file to the project, root level, and rename to "credentials-user.json"
      2. See existing example file "credentials-user.json" to double-check expected format and content
   2. The script normally does not run locally with bot credentials - if you want to run locally with bot credentials (instead of your own), you need to set env var or modify the script
   3. The bot credentials are made available to fly.io via a "secret", which is an env var provided to script at runtime
   4. Normally when running locally, you will use your OWN credentials, and the bot will prompt you for authentication
4. Encode the bot file into a base64 string for fly.io setup
   1. Terminal command, run in Git Bash: $ base64 credentials-bot2.json | tr --delete '\n'
      1. This is done to provide the downloaded credentials file to fly.io in a secure manner (through secrets), in a supported way (file itself isn't supported, but strings are)
      2. The script will decode this base64 string back into json format for Google API
   2. Store this string somewhere for later fly.io setup (where you will add it as a secret)
      1. flyctl secrets set GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS=<output string from previous step>

1. Open the folder containing local copy of your repo from Setup Git > step 5

2. Open bot.py

3. Change settings how you'd like (settings.py)

4. Save the file.

5. If not configured in Fly.io (Setup Fly step 9), Open config.py and fill in these fields with your info. Make sure not to remove the apostrophes surrounding them.

   BOT_USERNAME = 'ReallyCoolBot'
   BOT_PASSWORD = 'password'
   CLIENT_ID = 'asdfasdfasdf'
   CLIENT_SECRET = 'asdfasdfasdf'
   DISCORD_TOKEN = 'asdfasdfasdf'
   DISCORD_ERROR_GUILD = 'asdfasdfasdf'
   DISCORD_ERROR_CHANNEL = 'asdfasdfasdf'
   SUBREDDITS = 'SomeSubreddit,AnotherSubreddit'
   

   When config is not provided in Fly, the bot will attempt to use config from this file.

6. Save the file.

7. Optionally run the bot locally - settings.py's "is_dry_run" can be set to "True" to run the bot without it making any changes (report, remove, reply to posts)

• The main advantage of Fly.io is their base (hobby) plan includes enough hours to host this bot for free. This guide assumes you’re using Windows and this bot's code, but should work for getting a general Reddit bot running on Fly.io as well.
• Hosting this bot alongside other apps in your Fly account may incur costs if the cumulative resource usage is beyond free limits

1. Create a Fly account. This is the service which will be running the bot.

2. Create your new Fly application from the command line, references:

   1. Speedrun setup
   2. Fly.io webpage, cannot create Python apps from here, reference only (main page > "Launch an App")
   3. Non-fly guide

3. Open powershell on your PC from Windows search "Windows Powershell"

4. Install fly.io tooling by copy pasting this command into the powershell terminal:

   1. https://fly.io/docs/hands-on/install-flyctl/#windows
   2. iwr https://fly.io/install.ps1 -useb | iex

5. Log in to fly from your terminal with:

   1. https://fly.io/docs/hands-on/sign-in/
   2. flyctl auth login

6. Navigate to the folder you extracted or cloned the git repo to (Setup Git > step 7)

7. Launch a new app to fly.io with:

   1. https://fly.io/docs/hands-on/launch-app/
      1. You will want to override the existing fly.toml file, as the app name is included in this file
   2. flyctl launch

8. Verify you see the fly app on your fly webpage

9. Add the required config for your bot to Fly.io (added to Fly to keep sensitive info private) via command line:

   1. app page (https://fly.io/apps/) > Secrets
   2. Reference: https://fly.io/docs/reference/secrets/#setting-secrets
   3. flyctl secrets set BOT_USERNAME=BotRedditUsername
      1. For Google credentials, set to earlier step output: flyctl secrets set GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS=<output string from previous step>
   4. Add your each secret individually with above command (after set, they are encrypted and not readable):

   BOT_USERNAME = 'ReallyCoolBot'
   BOT_PASSWORD = 'password'
   CLIENT_ID = 'asdfasdfasdf'
   CLIENT_SECRET = 'asdfasdfasdf'
   DISCORD_TOKEN = 'asdfasdfasdf'
   DISCORD_ERROR_GUILD = 'asdfasdfasdf'
   DISCORD_ERROR_CHANNEL = 'asdfasdfasdf'
   GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS = ...special setup...
   SUBREDDITS = 'SomeSubreddit,AnotherSubreddit'
   

10. Deploy your new app to fly.io with:

    1. https://fly.io/docs/hands-on/launch-app/ > "Next: Deploying Your App"
    2. flyctl deploy

11. Monitor app from Fly.io, or command line:

    1. https://fly.io/apps/
    2. https://fly.io/apps//monitoring
    3. flyctl status
    4. You should now see the bot in action. You can check your subreddit to see whatever changes it made (if any) as well as make a test post to ensure it's working properly.

• Automatically deploys your code to Fly.io when changes are pushed to the Github repo's master branch
• Without this step, you will manually deploy the app from command line as needed with flyctl deploy

1. Obtain an authentication token, which will tell fly.io which application you are deploying to:

   1. On command line, flyctl auth token

2. From your Github forked repo, add this auth token as a secret

   1. Non-fly guide
   2. Go to your repo's Settings > Secrets > Actions and click New repository secret

3. Now, whenever you add to your repo's master branch, it will automatically deploy to fly.io

   1. You can prevent automatic deployments by removing this auth token from github, or removing the fly.yml file (.github/workflows/fly.yml)
   2. You can cancel individual deployments whilst it's running:
      1. Navigate to Actions Page (https://github.com///actions), which lists all previous and ongoing deployments
      2. Click on the current deployment (yellow circle) > Cancel Workflow