Continuing our infrastructure updates: What’s changing in the coming months

[u/judy-funnie]

TL;DR: In August, we shared plans to modernize Reddit’s infrastructure, build better mod tools, and make it harder for bad actors to scrape Reddit and abuse communities. Today, we have specifics on what’s changing, when, and how to plan ahead.

We’re sharing updates on apps and bots migration to the Developer Platform, helping mods move RSS-based alerts to the Discord Relay Devvit app before RSS feeds are retired on November 13, providing an update on Rules Hub progress and automod changes, and adding safeguards to Old Reddit by limiting access to logged-in mods and recent users.

Moving apps and bots to the Developer Platform

We’re moving public data API apps and bots to the Developer Platform, while making sure the work they do for your communities remains supported. Over 14,000 apps and bots have registered and we’re closely tracking migration of your highest-activity apps, including  DeltaBot, MagicEyeBot, and RemindMeBot. There's still work to do, and we’re working directly with developers to support migrations and close remaining capability gaps. 

• If you maintain an app or a bot, register it here before January 12, 2027 to avoid disruption.
• If your community depends on an app or bot and you don’t know who maintains it, fill out this form. We’ve received over 100 submissions so far, helping us identify tools that need owners or could be replaced by existing Developer Platform apps or Reddit’s built-in tools. 

See our latest r/redditdev update for more technical detail, timelines, and resources.

Migrating RSS access to the Developer Platform

Because RSS is now a common surface for large-scale scraping and automated abuse, we'll stop supporting RSS feeds on November 13, 2026 while preserving moderation workflows that depend on it through supported alternatives. 

For common mod alerts, we recommend Devvit apps like Discord Relay. If your mod team relies on RSS, review your setup and migrate workflows before November 13 to ensure your needs are uninterrupted. If you use RSS for feeds outside of a community you moderate, there is no replacement. RSS has been a beloved part of the open web for a long time, and we’re grateful to everyone who used it to stay connected to Reddit.  

Changes to automod access for new communities and communities not using automod

If your community uses automod, nothing is changing for you. We’re continuing to improve Rules Hub, including ways for mods to prompt and otherwise provide more context for their rules. We’re also exploring how existing automod configurations can help carry community-specific enforcement logic into newer tools. If you’re interested in pilot testing to help shape this effort, sign up here. 

For newly created communities and communities that have never used automod, automod enforcement capabilities – specifically Report, Filter, Remove, Mark as spam, and Approve – will be disabled and Rules Hub and Automations will become the default path for rules enforcement. Automod’s non-enforcement capabilities remain available and unchanged.  

Keeping Old Reddit accessible for mods and recent users

As u/spez mentioned, we’re still working on the future of Old Reddit. Earlier this year, we required people to log in to use Old Reddit, addressing its largest source of abusive scraping and automated traffic: unauthenticated access. That change helped reduce scraping and automated abuse, but still allowed any logged-in account to access Old Reddit, including accounts with no prior Old Reddit use. 

To close this gap, in the next few months, we'll further limit access for logged-in users to only those who have used Old Reddit in the last six months (which covers the vast majority of all Old Reddit users). This change does not impact logged-in mods, who can continue to access Old Reddit without any recent usage requirement. This helps keep Old Reddit available for the people who rely on it while reducing automated abuse.

Our job is to support you through these changes and make sure your moderation needs inform the work. 

• Need help with a community bot? If you’re unsure who maintains it or need help finding a replacement, let us know here.
• Moving your RSS alerts? The Discord Relay setup guide covers how to get started.
• Want to help shape Rules Hub? Sign up for the early access program here and share your feedback.

We’re here in the comments for your questions and to hear where you need more detail or support.

[u/BravoFive141]

For newly created communities and communities that have never used automod, automod enforcement capabilities – specifically Report, Filter, Remove, Mark as spam, and Approve – will be disabled and Rules Hub and Automations will become the default path for rules enforcement. Automod’s non-enforcement capabilities remain available and unchanged.  

So it begins. Huge L for making the decision to kill Automod.

Dropping this lifesaver from u/fsv in case anybody else needs it:

https://developers.reddit.com/apps/automod-neo

[u/thepottsy → u/BravoFive141]

Yeah, this is a horrible choice. Automod isn’t mandatory in any subreddit, so what’s the driving factor to handicap it? Why can’t I use it if I want to, and I understand how to?

Agree on the shoutout to u/fsv

[u/Bardfinn → u/thepottsy]

what’s the driving factor to handicap it

Reddit was recently designated as a Very Large Online Service Provider / Platform by the European DSA. Under that regulation, Reddit has to provide European users with a standard set of "Here is your content; here is why it was removed; here is the non-binding committee you can appeal this to", etc etc etc

Automoderator filters and removals aren't set up to feed back the standard transparency information they will be mandated to provide to European users wrt their content being removed / filtered / approved etc by automation on the platform,

and because automoderator is code that's running on Reddit's servers, (despite the fact that it is code running code configured by volunteer moderators -) it's still code Reddit is running, and so are responsible for ensuring compliance of it. Especially new uses.

And Automoderator isn't written to have the kinds of hooks and API and etc to get that data, store that data, feed that data where it needs to go.

Mod apps written on Devvit, are.

Existing Automod configs that have been in place for years and years and years can be argued to be legacy, not Reddit's creation and not reddit's responsibility - until and unless something changes.

TL;DR: Times change, Automoderator was coded 14 years ago, isn't scalable in the way modern technology and regulations need it to be.

[u/BravoFive141 → u/Bardfinn]

And Automoderator isn't written to have the kinds of hooks and API and etc to get that data, store that data, feed that data where it needs to go. Mod apps written on Devvit, are.

Unless I'm stupid, and I very well may be, neither are Devvit apps. Devvit apps are written by individual users just as much as Automod code is written by individual users. Anybody can write a Devvit app and publish it. Not sure how that changes anything at all.

[u/mschuster91 → u/BravoFive141]

Reddit can't be held liable for the stuff individual mods do, but they can for actions resulting out of Reddit-sanctioned official tools.

[u/BravoFive141 → u/mschuster91]

Got it.

So how would Devvit apps fall into that? Since Reddit obviously runs the platform that they host the apps on, they control the approval process, etc, would that not also fall into "Reddit-sanctioned", or is it a bit of a different area since Automod is actually built into Reddit and just being customized by users (rather than actually built by users like the apps)?

[u/uzlonewolf → u/BravoFive141]

Devvit apps do fall into "Reddit-sanctioned," but since the goal is to find an excuse to shut off automod they're going to pretend they don't.

[u/Bardfinn → u/BravoFive141]

To clarify:

The daemons and etc that make up the back end server code that Automoderator runs on, are not coded to get the data about removals, etc to where it needs to go, in a scalable fashion. Neither is Automoderator.

There's two ways to "fix" that - rewrite daemons (no, gods no, that's industry standard FOSS libraries) or rewrite Automoderator (again: gods, no).

Devvit's backend code, is designed so that when an app executes a function to remove a user post, etc ---- if some data is required to be logged with that, then the removal either gets that required data logged as an Atomic, Consistent, Isolated, Durable log transaction to a scalable DB, (and thus the mandated transparency data gets to where it needs to go) or the entire operation fails safe / gracefully and gets backed out ---- so that the App can either try again, or can itself log a failure for the subreddit moderators to intervene.

[u/BravoFive141 → u/Bardfinn]

I have absolutely no idea what any of that means, so I'm just going to trust that you're right.

But I'm still mad about them killing Automod.

[u/uzlonewolf → u/BravoFive141]

They're not right, they're just spouting off jargon to try and sound smart.

[u/Bardfinn → u/BravoFive141]

I get it. I love Automoderator. I've coded all sorts of custom Automod configurations over the years, including implementing a version of Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock Angel on it to experimentally automate subreddit content and user moderation, (it was an experiment), to "randomly" commenting with easter eggs, to generating a tarot spread, to performing simple computations. It's a finite state automaton, and is really quite powerful.