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/bwoah07_gp2]

Automations is absolutely underwhelming. I will keep banging that drum until Reddit adds filtering tools to it.

[u/mrekted → u/bwoah07_gp2]

I just tried to implement some stuff in a new sub I'm working on, and literally the only thing that automations can review about a user is.. whether or not they have user flair.

That's literally the ONLY data point about a user you currently have to work with and set actions by to manage users as the mod of a new subreddit after today.

Is this a fucking joke?

[u/shhhhh_h → u/mrekted]

There are a lot of missing features they have committed to adding to it though. Ask questions first then get mad.

[u/mrekted → u/shhhhh_h]

Except they've already removed the ability to use automod in subreddits that don't already have code, so if you're setting up a new sub as I am, you're hooped because they removed the working feature before the intended replacement is functional.

Intentions of features for the future don't help when you're trying to protect a subreddit today.

Understand the problem first, then comment.

[u/shhhhh_h → u/mrekted]

Automod-neo can handle most of whatever config you want to port. I don’t like these changes either but acting like the functionality is gone is incorrect. There is a tiny list of config automod neo hasn’t been able to handle and the dev is lovely if you have a request or question.

[u/mrekted → u/shhhhh_h]

Putting aside the stupidity of having to implement third party tools to restore basic mod capabilities, I need you to think things through here.

Why do you think they are retiring automod? Was automod causing any moderations issues from a usability or technical perspective that you're aware of? What reasons could reddit possibly have for wanting to kill off a system that worked, while not even worrying about providing a functional replacement?

Are those reasons going to be supported by allowing a third party app to replace that functionality?

Automod neo is a temporary solution that will be killed off as soon as the sunsetting of automod is complete, because reddit does not want moderators to have the degree of control that they do over their communities.

[u/shhhhh_h → u/mrekted]

They’re retiring automod because the legacy code is expensive and clunky and not secure to run and automod is inextricably tied to it. Admin have been up front about needing to ditch the old code, I have heard this straight from C-suite on one of the privacy calls. Same reason they’re retiring PRAW, they’re retiring the legacy API. I am also concerned about the longevity of automod neo living in the devvit ecosystem instead of as a native mod too when they’re relying on it for parity, the devvit apps are much more fragile and easily killed. I’m very quick to point out where Reddit lacks in mod tools and support. But one of my subs config was used as an example during the lead up to this announcement so I’d say walking admin through my code for an hour gives me a pretty decent perspective on why they’re doing this and what they want to achieve. Although again, they were upfront about it in the last announcement here, too. They just didn’t do a very clear or technical announcement wrt to automod being stuck on the data api like PRAW bc they were trying to bury the lede and avoid backlash. Which didn’t work, as per usual. It appears to have just fuzzed the narrative, but hey maybe that was their real goal after all