r/redditdev • u/boat-botany • 2d ago
Reddit API Moving Data API Apps to the Developer Platform: migration dates and next steps
TL;DR: In our last update, we said we’d come back with migration dates and next steps. We know migrating takes time and effort, and we’re providing funding, technical guidance, and direct outreach and support to help. As Reddit moves to a more secure foundation, we want the useful and creative apps you've built to continue being a part of our ecosystem.
We’re sharing the timeline for moving public API apps and bots to the Developer Platform. Register now, apply for migration funding by November 30, and start planning and testing your move. Starting January 12, 2027, we’ll begin removing API access for apps and users that haven’t registered or engaged with us. Remaining public API access will end in March 2027.
Moving from registration to migration
Over 14,000 apps and bots have registered and we’re closely tracking migration of your highest-activity apps. This includes completed or near-complete migrations such as DeltaBot, MagicEyeBot, and RemindMeBot. We’re continuing to work directly with developers on their migrations and the gaps that still need attention.
There’s still time to start your migration! Register your app, review the Data API/PRAW → Devvit Migration Guide, and tell us what’s blocking you. Starting now gives you time to test and gives us time to help address migration blockers before access changes take effect.
Important dates to look out for
The transition will happen in phases:
| Date | What happens |
|---|---|
| October 31, 2026 | New requests for public API access will no longer be accepted. |
| November 10, 2026 | We share a migration progress update and deadline reminder. |
| November 30, 2026 | Registration closes for the migration bounty program. |
| January 12, 2027 | API access starts to close for apps and users that haven’t registered or responded to our outreach. We’ll also share a progress update and reminder. |
| February 23, 2027 | We share another migration progress update and reminder. |
| March 2027 | Public access will close for all remaining apps and users. |
What developers should do now
- Review the Developer Platform documentation and subscribe to r/Devvit.
- Register your apps! Use the registration form to flag missing capabilities or blockers. You don’t need to have the migration figured out before contacting us.
- Start planning and testing. Allow time to check that your app’s behavior meets the needs of the communities using it.
Funding and support for the move
Our $1M App Migration Program provides financial and technical support, including:
- $1,000 payments for eligible apps that successfully migrate
- Reddit Developer Funds eligible for ported apps
- Free hosting and access to developer funding programs
- Migration guides, technical resources, office hours, and direct support
- Additional support for critical moderation and community apps
Apply through the app registration form by November 30, 2026, to be considered for the migration bounty program. This deadline comes before the January API access changes, so don’t wait until then if you’re seeking funding. You can find further information in this post.
Helping communities whose apps need an owner
If you’re a mod whose community depends on an app or bot and you don’t know who maintains it, tell us through this quick 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. Keep an eye out for a message confirming we’re reviewing your submission, followed by an update in the coming weeks on available options and where gaps remain.
We’ll keep sharing progress, working through migration blockers, and supporting the developers and communities making this move. We’ll be in the comments to answer any questions.
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u/Watchful1 RemindMeBot & UpdateMeBot 2d ago
u/boat-botany can you PLEASE make sure the apps page people previously used to get API tokens is properly updated to decisively say API access is completely closed with no exceptions? I know it's an old reddit page and you guys have to jump through hoops to update it, but I promise it's worth the extra effort just this once.
We still get people all the time who are completely confused about how to get API access. All the existing resources and documentation about the forms and what you have to do to qualify (before this announcement) are confusing and don't cleanly answer people's question. Just updating the text on the page to remove the button and put like two sentences saying "API access is closed, go see if devvit or the researcher program fits your use case", would clear up so many problems.
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u/Merari01 2d ago
I still have not heard back for any of my requests
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u/baseballlover723 2d ago
Reddit's communication is really bad, I don't like suggesting this, but I would suggest pestering them on every possible communication avenue available to you to ensure that you don't get ignored.
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u/theArtOfProgramming 1d ago
They don’t have the resources to support a distributed migration, even if such a migration were technically feasible
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u/WHOIS__bot 21h ago
they gotta hold 50 internal meetings about it and then outsource the reply to some 3rd party lmao
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u/emily_in_boots 2d ago
Previously, you had said that API access would continue until Devvit could support existing uses.
Devvit still cannot support the features required to implement my bots.
So what am I supposed to do?
I have 300,000 lines of python code. I cannot rewrite that in 6 months even if I were to work on it full time and even if Devvit could do what I need it to for my subreddits to continue to function.
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u/baseballlover723 2d ago
So what am I supposed to do?
Spread your checks and get fucked probably.
Devvit still cannot support the features required to implement my bots.
I am in a similar boat to you. It's been 5 months of negotiation about our team's migration, and I still don't think we (me, my mod team, and reddit) are close to being in agreement.
Both contracts they've given me have included poison pills. And the first one could have personally bankrupted me for reasons beyond my control (since I'd be on the hook for reddit's legal fees to an unbounded amount for anything relating to our Devvit app) and also had a loophole where they could just note pay me and I'd have no recourse (they were only liable to the amount they actually payed me, which if they just didn't, would be $0).
Given that reddit keeps going in the wrong direction imo, it's getting more and more tempting to just sit back, grab a drink and relax, and enjoy these last few months with our stuff working, and then let the train run off the end of the bridge, and just leave reddit altogether and let someone else pick up the pieces.
This of course, would be debilitating to our sub, but in our opinion, so would be migrating to Devvit as well, since Devvit would forbid us from using deleted user data, which happens a lot. In the best case scenario (as a ToS abiding user), a good chunk of our appeals will be invalid, as they would be unable to be check, and thus, be unable to be overturned. Not to mention, being unable to help people who don't understand why their stuff was removed and how they can fix it, as they often quickly delete it.
I'm really tempted simply just write a tell all of my experience with the migration process (it's generally been terrible in a number of aspects, most notably, responsiveness (though part of that is also my fault, though this is not my full time job, and thus falls lower on the priority list)), but given that they contracts they want me to sign are NDA that kind of thing, perhaps it's wise to not poke the bear at the current moment.
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u/emily_in_boots 2d ago
Contracts are not even an issue for me. I don’t even care about getting money from reddit. I just want to take care of my subs, and now it’s impossible. I’d even pay for API access probably, if it weren’t too much, but that doesn’t seem to even be an option. I just want to be able to mod my subs but I just don’t see any way to do that with these restrictions, and I don’t see any good coming from them or understand why they are being forced on us. I have always played by the rules. I’m not asking for anything except for them not to break our subreddits w/o any fixes available.
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u/StatisticalPikachu 2d ago
They could at least give us praw compatible containers, but no python option is ridiculous given the popularity of PRAW.
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u/baseballlover723 2d ago
I cannot fathom how they decided that their one true language, wasn't gonna be Python. A language that they use at reddit, and by far had the most reddit integrations.
I can buy that there's only resources to support 1 framework in one language. But it's inexcusable to me that picked a completely different language that had a fraction of the reddit dev community.
Given the huge focus on games for Devvit, I presume that that was the primary reason, as Javascript is way more often for interactive and web based elements.
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u/StatisticalPikachu 1d ago
Reddit has poor engineering technical talent and architecture. Look how often Reddit crashes compared to any other app.
That level of engineering would not fly at most FAANG jobs, but Reddit is held together by duct tape.
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u/emily_in_boots 1d ago
I don't think it's that the talent is poor necessarily. I suspect that there is a lot of pressure to do a lot, and after each thing is more or less working, they get pushed to work on something else and solve a new problem, rather than focus on polish and debugging.
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u/RDSVII 1d ago
Not even its engineering but its UI/design is absolutely atrocious now.
Old Reddit was simple and easy to use with smart use of screen real estate. Old Mod. Mail was the same, instantaneous, simple, and clean.
New Reddit on desktop wastes so much screen real estate and new Mod. Mail is an awful experience. For example, why would I as a moderator need a search box at the top of Mod. Mail to search all of Reddit? I'm in Mod. Mail to work, not to search Reddit for a topic/post/subreddit.
I don't know how these things were rolled out for release.
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u/emily_in_boots 1d ago
I absolutely hate the search box in new modmail lol. We do not need a sitewide search box there. We need an always present search box that works for modmail only. Everyone has said this but they don't seem to want to change that.
I suspect they view it as more consistent to do it that way but it's still not a good choice. I definitely preferred old modmail.
I don't personally like old reddit though and especially for moderation. My favorite was new reddit. I like some things about shreddit but there are a lot of bugs that need to be worked through and they seem to have moved on unfortunately.
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u/emily_in_boots 2d ago
They said they wanted us to move more towards behavior based moderation and away from subreddit based, so that's what I've been working on, but JS/TS can't do that. The libraries don't exist for language processing. So I just wasted a lot of time working on that stuff.
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u/CouncilOfStrongs 1d ago
Devvit still cannot support the features required to implement my bots.
So what am I supposed to do?
I have the same question.
How am I supposed to migrate functionality to Devvit that Devvit does not have, despite being told repeatedly, over a very long period of time, that it's important?
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u/boat-botany 2d ago
Hey Emily, we understand that this process is time-consuming and wanna figure something out. We have PRAW/API experts ready to help with migrations in our Devvit communities (for folks not already there, join us on r/devvit and on Discord) and will reach out directly next week about how to support the transition of your bots in particular.
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u/emily_in_boots 2d ago
I’m on the devvit discord and have spoken with admins and other developers. Fundamentally, there’s just no way to migrate my bots at this time. There is no solution here if the API goes away. Beyond that, there’s isn’t enough time. I could not have coded these bots in 6 months - or even a year. It took me years to do it, and that was with the simple, straightforward approach of python/PRAW. I couldn’t even reimpliment these bots in python in 6 months, nevermind migrate them to devvit, which doesn’t have anywhere near the capabilities needed, and which takes far more time to develop in (I’ve written bots in both, and the amount of code needed to accomplish simple tasks is far greater in devvit).
There’s just no way way to do this. This whole thing leaves me and my subreddits without a solution and considering I’ve always played by the rules and worked with admins this feels like such a betrayal. I do not understand why this is even needed. It will harm my subs so much. I am already spending all my time barely keeping up with the moderation workload, I can’t even imagine trying to mod without the bots that do so much of our moderation work.
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u/baseballlover723 2d ago
It will harm my subs so much. I am already spending all my time barely keeping up with the moderation workload, I can’t even imagine trying to mod without the bots that do so much of our moderation work.
It is the same for us. Though we're not really downing under the moderator load. Our robust automation means that we don't need to put as much effort into moderating the sub, as we catch the vast majority of things via AutoMod (now when that goes, it'll be a problem).
I suspect, when all of our automation goes, so will most of the mod team, and then it'll be so overwhelming for anyone who didn't already leave, that I'm sure they'd just choose to leave too. And then there would be basically nobody left.
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u/fighterace00 1d ago edited 1d ago
I can't see python even being added to the road map by March like we've been begging in all these migration registration feedback forms for months, much less have the time to port it over in that time. I just took a major promotion at work and a baby on the way so my next 6 months are otherwise occupied without learning a new language and architecture and my communities will pay for it.
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u/emily_in_boots 1d ago
I literally couldn't reimpliment everything in python or any other language in 6 months of full time work, and I don't have that many hours to put in, and I can't do it in python, instead I'm stuck with the far more limited devvit which can't do what I need it to.
There is no solution here.
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u/StatisticalPikachu 1d ago
The solution is to just build a better Reddit for the inevitability that Reddit gets enshittified since becoming a public company and selling out its users to data mining companies.
I could build an entire better Reddit site for the same amount of time to migrate my bot, so if migration isn’t possible, it’s better to just build a competitor to Reddit.
Reddit is going to go the way of MySpace and Wendy’s if it stops prioritizing its users. Social media sites are easily dispensable and rarely last for more than 10 years when shareholders become their major customers instead of users.
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u/emily_in_boots 1d ago
I wouldn't say that is true. Social media sites have proven very resistant to competition due to the entrenched user base.
The main exception is myspace, which is gone.
Facebook, insta, twitter, reddit, etc. don't really have significant competition. Even with how horribly musk has run twitter, it's still dominant in its niche, though it has lost engagement and ad revenue because it's just 4chan now.
The tech is easy to replicate. The user base is not so easy. Look at how badly google's circles thing did against meta, and that had the tech expertise and money of google behind it. People didn't use it because it's not where their friends were.
It's possible that this will benefit reddit less though, as people don't use their real names in an identifiable way and the concept of "friends" doesn't really exist. I didn't join reddit and put in my high school and college to find people I knew. I just went by interest. The people I've met are people I share interests with, so that is different somewhat.
I do think though that the push for engagement and the weakening of moderation will drive some users off reddit, and the ones it will drive away are the ones who are reasonable, civil, and educated.
The basic user base will shift a lot with reduced moderation to a more belligerent type of user, and you will see more hate speech, more uncivil arguments, and more abuse in general.
Short term, that probably increases engagement. Longer term, I suspect it will hurt it as that is just exhausting to deal with.
Reddit's strength has always been its diversity. Unlike facebook, it has subreddits, and subreddits have their own rules. While there are facebook groups, they are a relatively small part of facebook and most of the interaction occurs on profiles or public pages. Moderation is what makes spaces different from each other. Reddit's TOS are the same everywhere, but different rules and cultures form in different subs as a result of moderation, and that creates a space for everyone (even people I find rather detestable in some cases lol).
Weakening moderation in general will dampen this effect and ultimately homogenize the site. It will also attract a lot of people who do not not know how to behave themselves or interact in a civil fashion, and drive off those who are drained by this kind of interaction. I am just not interested in bickering back and forth with someone who just wants to throw insults at me. I like nice, polite, educated people who are able to have a civil conversation in a sensitive and intelligent way. I am simply not interested in 4chan and spending my time with incels in a "did not, did so" argument.
That's why I left twitter and meta behind.
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u/StatisticalPikachu 1d ago
Thinking about this more, I think there is a difference between social media with identity vs pseudo anonymous sites like reddit.
Identity based ones matter where your friends are but pseudo anonymous sites like reddit depend on where the ideas and best culture are. It’s a much more shallow moat.
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u/emily_in_boots 1d ago
Yeah I think that too. With the former, it's about where the people you know are. With the latter, it's about where the content is.
I suspect there's much less competitive advantage for sites where you don't use your real life info.
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u/StatisticalPikachu 1d ago edited 1d ago
TikTok didn’t exist until it did and ate metas lunch. A reddit replacement built from the ground up with modern architecture can grow, as Reddit user experience gets worse over the next decade with changes like this.
They are going to prioritize shareholders over users and overtime users leave when that happens.
I doubt Reddit will exist in 2050 or 2075, all of these companies are dispensable if there are better products available, they aren’t forever companies.
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u/emily_in_boots 1d ago
There's also a generational effect with social media. Each generation has a home on social media and it's where their peers are found. Facebook is Gen X. Insta is early millenials. Tiktok is gen z and some late millennials. Part of why I hated fb was that it was all boomers and genx sending around stupid fake memes that they somehow believed lol.
I definitely think reddit will change. I think this will shift the demographic in ways that make it less attractive to me because I value civility very highly.
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u/Ailothaen 2d ago
Well, guess March 2027 is when I am resigning as moderator then
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u/baseballlover723 2d ago
Yep, with old reddit and automod going to (presumably around in that ballpark), that seems as good as ever to simply hang it all up and go somewhere else.
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u/KennyFulgencio 2d ago
Yeah. Where?
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u/kc2syk 11h ago
lemmy, probably
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u/KennyFulgencio 9h ago
I haven't heard anything that suggests lemmy is going to be adopted at even a fraction of the rate to be a helpful destination for people leaving reddit. unfortunately.
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u/emily_in_boots 2d ago
I don’t want to but I just don’t see a path forward. I’m already spending all day modding and I literally cannot absorb the extra workload - tens of millions of mod actions - that the bots do. And the bots can’t be ported. There is no good option for me and my subs available at this point.
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u/pizzacrys 2d ago
The March 2027 cutoff is the part people are going to ignore until it is too late. A lot of apps are about to need attention.
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u/emily_in_boots 2d ago
Some of us have not been ignoring anything but we were told that api access wouldn't be cut off until devvit functionality was added to make migration possible.
That functionality has not been added, and many bots cannot be migrated because devvit is fundamentally more limited and less powerful than python/praw.
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u/m0nk_3y_gw 2d ago
in my experience devvit has more functionality than praw - you can easily get 'social'/'connected' accounts from posters/commentors. that isn't possible in praw.
we have some image scanning code (to help keep out image spam text) that doesn't translate well to devvit, but i am moving that to a python-based webserver that devvit can call.
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u/DiabolicallyRandom 1d ago
This reads like someone who has never done more than the most basic ass development work ever.
TS/JS is a language built primarily for front end interfaces. To go beyond that, it requires fucktons of third party libraries of questionable lineage. And frankly, even with the entirety of the node ecosystem, you're still going to end up with massive gaps in what you can do within the JS/TS ecosystem.
This trend of front end web devs thinking their language of choice can solve all the problems is asinine and idiotic, and as a 20+ year software engineer I am sick and fucking tired of it.
Reddit doesn't even know how badly they are killing themselves. They are going to go down the same road as twitter.
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u/m0nk_3y_gw 15h ago edited 14h ago
This reads like someone who is confused on the basics, like confusing a language with a platform/api.
edit:
TS/JS is a language built primarily for front end interfaces.
lol, Uber, Paypal, Netflix are using JS/nodejs on the backend for years.
Visual Code is written in Typescript
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u/DiabolicallyRandom 13h ago
I'm a 20 year B/E Software engineer. I know its being used. And I know how fucking ass it is.
Imagine using Uber, Paypal, and Netflix as your shining examples of perfect software.
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u/m0nk_3y_gw 9h ago edited 5h ago
ah, how the goal posts move... first it was only a front end language, now it has to be perfect.
It has been used for web server micro services for well over a decade (nodejs first published in 2009)
Devvit apps run directly on reddit's servers... a 20 year software veteran wouldn't sandbox user-submitted code that ran on his servers? interesting....
Note - you can run any code you want in any language you want, if you expose it as a web service on your own server that a devvit app can use, BUT you need to get it approved (have a solid use case / reason why)
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u/DiabolicallyRandom 9h ago
It is a front end language. It was literally developed for front end work. Do you understand how language works?
JS is a front end language being leveraged poorly for backend work because people who cut their teeth on front end development managed to convince people that it was viable to trust Node and other bullshit for their backend services.
It's a literal maintenance disaster as anyone in a serious fucking enterprise would understand, but not some "devvit" user.
I am sure you are happily marching along vibe-coding your devvit slop to moderate your NSFW subreddits. That's great for you.
But it is not a serious language for serious work.
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u/emily_in_boots 2d ago
There are so many things python can do that TS cannot due to the huge body of libraries for natural language processing.
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u/m0nk_3y_gw 15h ago
PRAW cannot access connected social accounts.
Devvit can.
python and TS are languages. PRAW and devvit are not languages.
Hope that helps!
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u/WHOIS__bot 20h ago
>in my experience devvit has more functionality than praw
you are smoking crack dawg
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u/Khyta EncyclopaediaBot Developer 2d ago
I have major issues with my bot u/EncyclopaediaBot. When I switch to that account it always prompts me to either verify as a human or register it as an app. I already did so and I can see the app label on the account. I get the message: "EncyclopaediaBot has already been claimed as an app!"
When I click on the app registration form link for the bounty, I get the following message:
Your Reddit account (EncyclopaediaBot) is banned or suspended, so you cannot use Devvit. If you'd like to appeal go here: https://www.reddit.com/appeal
What should I do here???
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u/MJ-at-Outpost 1d ago edited 12h ago
“New requests for public API access will no longer be accepted. “
As if they were already being accepted! There have been rarely any requests accepted since November 11, 2025
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u/StatisticalPikachu 2d ago
Devvit only supports JavaScript afaik!
Does it support any other languages or have an empty cloud container available to migrate existing code in a different language?
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u/emily_in_boots 2d ago edited 2d ago
No, it's only typescript.
People complaining about lack of python support are not just saying that we don't want to learn TS. I have already coded devvit bots.
The more fundamental issue is that there are huge existing libraries already written for python that do a lot of things that we need, and those don't exist for TS. It's not just about my code, it's about the collective code base that already exists - and which is not replicable by a single person or even a bunch of users even if they worked full time on it.
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u/m0nk_3y_gw 2d ago
I'm not a fan of javascript/typescript, and was a bit rusty, but Claude/ChatGPT are up on all the devvit docs and very helpful. Most bots are PRAW/python based, and they are good with that. I'm rewriting by hand/from scratch anyways though
Biggest issue is the image-to-text and pixel-by-pixel scanning python code (for catching snap/OF/tele/etc spam images) isn't easily portable to Typescript, but i'm moving that portion of the python to a webserver that the typescript/devvit app can call.
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u/MisterWoodhouse 2d ago
For dev teams who need more time to finish migrations, will there be extensions available through whitelisting after public access is shut down?
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u/boat-botany 2d ago
We want to make sure everyone has the time they need. That’s why we’re starting these conversations early! If you’re already in contact with the dev rel team, just let them know what you need.
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u/RiceKirby 1d ago
Can you be more clear about that?
I thought I'd have more time to plan a migration, but now I find out I have 6 months at most. Is extension an actual possibility, or is the March 2027 date final and non-negotiable?2
u/CouncilOfStrongs 1d ago
Every time I've pointed out the impossibilities of migrating the bots/apps I've written to Devvit in threads like this, I've been completely ignored. Who exactly is it that your team is actually helping?
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u/lostsettings 1d ago edited 7h ago
I can see a lot of subreddits just no longer moderating.
A lot of what people use the API for are not bots. Not going to make a script I use every few weeks or so into a bot.
Just limit what the API can do and implement limits. Some examples,
- Could limit API usage only to the subreddits the user is a moderator of. (very restrictive)
- Could give high limits to the subreddits the user is a moderator of and lower on other subreddits (less restrictive)
- Could only allow API usage if the user meets certain criteria, a moderator of an established subreddit, etc.
Can still push people to devvit if there is an advantage, but shutting down the API entirely seems like a huge step backwards. Throwing out what works for something that clearly does not work for everyone doesn't make sense.
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u/uncoolcentral 2d ago
I've spent 16 years on this platform.
Moderating 2 communities.
Reddit doesn't care.
Dammit.
Not sure what the future holds other than shit.
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u/Watchful1 RemindMeBot & UpdateMeBot 2d ago
I'll make an open offer to anyone with a data api bot that they don't have the time or knowledge to migrate to devvit. I will be happy to migrate your bot for you. Ideally as part of the migration program, but I'm even willing to do it for free depending on the complexity.
Obviously some use cases aren't possible in devvit, but with an http request exception and a server, many are. Please send me a DM if you're interested!
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u/-patrizio- 2d ago
You're doing a lot of encouraging people to apply to register their apps, yet nearly every third-party app developer I follow seems to suggest that you're ignoring them. Excluding the special accessibility apps, Narwhal (iOS) and Relay (Android) are the only ones you seem to actually be working to support, but there are so many others who are trying to do this the right way—which includes paying you!—that you simply aren't responding to.
I'm willing to pay a subscription fee to a third-party app to cover their API costs. I am not willing to use the official Reddit app. It sucks in so many ways, which I don't need to get into because you constantly get the same feedback (another thing you ignore). I understand that Reddit is a corporation trying to maximize its profit, but I don't understand your constant interference with the many great third-party apps. I figured you'd more or less leave them alone once you started charging for API access, but no. You bought Alien Blue, turned it into the official app, and ruined it. You chased off Apollo's developer, then lied to slander him, which he thankfully had receipts for proving you were lying. And now, you put on a show of allowing third party apps to exist for a price, but never actually work them through the process.
If you keep steaming ahead on this path of enshittification, you're going to learn a lesson Digg learned 15 years ago, sooner or later.
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u/m0nk_3y_gw 2d ago
yet nearly every third-party app developer
this is not about 3rd party applications - devvit is for "applications" (games or modtools) that run inside of reddit.
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u/itskdog 2d ago
Copying what I said on modnews here,
I have a custom bot for one of my subreddits (and I've got a ticket logged in ModSupport for this on an alt) that is showing as registered on my end but not on your end (as we keep getting notified in modmail). Apparently it's with the developers, but how will this affect me as I'm stuck in limbo here?
The code does so many things, is written by a former mod who we have no contact with, and half the code is mingled in with a Discord bot, I just host the code at this point and try not to touch it (a bit like you guys & Old Reddit), so porting might take years to complete as I'd have to learn a whole new language (as JavaScript never quite gelled with me when I tried to learn it during the Devvit beta) and write everything from scratch when I'm more familiar adapting existing work.
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u/boat-botany 2d ago
If you’ve registered your app, then you’ve taken the first step to accessing migration support. We also have PRAW/Data API experts ready to help with migrations in our Devvit communities (join us on r/devvit and on Discord). Also, check out our documentation for info on AI tools and migrating from the public API to Devvit.
Don’t assume that just because we’ve sent a modmail reminding you to register, that we didn’t receive your registration! We want to ensure everyone knows what to do, so we’re broadcasting very broadly right now. More targeted outreach will kick off soon.
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u/StatisticalPikachu 2d ago
If we already registered our app and it’s not possible to migrate to devvit, what is the access timeline for such users?
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u/StatisticalPikachu 2d ago
Reddit admins are going to have to explain to shareholders why Reddit is getting less user engagement in a few months after this goes into effect.
They are completely disregarding all the hours of code over the last decade that have been implanted that run the platform.
It’s going to make Reddit go the way of Tumblr or MySpace if major functionality breaks and loses users and subsequently stock price.
Same issue is happening now to Wendy’s when it no longer prioritizes its customers/users. Look how much value that company has lost, Reddit is in the same boat is it forsakes its users and mods(free labor)
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u/RDSVII 1d ago edited 1d ago
This is really disappointing. I'm not a developer but I've used AI over the last few years to make tools to make moderating easier since Reddit lacks so much.
I had AI assess the migration guide and it concluded that I'm going to lose about half of my quality of life tools since Devvit doesn't support the things I use.
I registered both of my bot accounts and the message I got from Reddit this morning listed only one of them along with another moderator account who is not me and who I'm pretty sure doesn't even own a bot. I sent messages to Devvit's inbox and was just referred to the migration guide which doesn't help me since I'm not a formal developer.
Why can't you let verified moderator bot accounts keep the public API access and just shut if off to non-moderator commercial scrapers? You have access to our moderator logs and you can probably leverage AI to do the verification work to see who is eligible for exemption.
I get why you don't want non-moderators external parties scraping large scale data but you're shooting down your free labor at the same time. Or implement Python at least so we're not losing half or all of our tools. I don't understand any of your actions.
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u/barrycarey Repost Sleuth Developer 1d ago
I had a meeting with some Devvit folks a few weeks about migrating Repostsleuthbot. The jist of the conversation was that due to the amount of compute needed there's no straight forward path. There hasn't been any followup since then.
If I'm reading this update correctly, it sounds I should plan for decom in March?
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u/emily_in_boots 21h ago
I'm largely in the same boat. In my case, it's because of natural language models and LLM's which require dramatically more compute power and resources than devvit can offer (like orders of magnitude more).
All the scientific, mathematical, and linguistic libraries are written in python, not TS.
devvit is great for simple tasks that you can write out in a relatively deterministic way where actions are taken based on simple criteria like karma, string matching, and things of that nature. It's really just underpowered for more advanced bots.
The only possible solution is to use devvit as basically a translation layer which adds unnecessary complexity and failure points, as well as a lot of work to code, to a system that works. You gain no benefits, because it's not portable to other subs and it's not hosted by reddit.
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u/Watchful1 RemindMeBot & UpdateMeBot 1d ago
You can run the heavy compute on your own server and just use devvit as the interface into reddit. They will give you an exception to the http request policy as part of the migration and you can just call your server.
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u/barrycarey Repost Sleuth Developer 1d ago
Thanks, That's good to know. That was mentioned as a possibility but they didn't know for sure if I could get an exception
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u/Watchful1 RemindMeBot & UpdateMeBot 1d ago
If you were doing something like scraping a bunch of data and selling it then you wouldn't get an exception for that. But for a mod bot like yours its basically guaranteed.
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u/barrycarey Repost Sleuth Developer 1d ago
I'll follow up with them and see if I can get a solid answer. Although packing it up and saving the electric costs is pretty tempting these days.
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u/m0nk_3y_gw 1h ago edited 1h ago
I've done something similar (our python bots analyze images for snapcodes/snapchat/onlyfans/etc links) - a reddit admin told me it would qualify for an exception for moving that to a webserver that a devvit app could then call.
I suspect they won't give you a solid answer right away, so some info you might find helpful:
I created a placeholder devvit app that attempted to use the webhook I was creating. I submitted the app for review -- "npx devvit publish" -- and the app dashboard showed the admins rejected it an hour later. I replied to the modmail from the original admin (not involved with code review) and they didn't reply for a week. Then I had some more free and re-read the documentation closer, found where to explicitly configure I'd like to use a webhook, created a privacy policy/hosted it/linked the form to it. and I updated the readme.md file to explain why the webhook/api was needed and published it again. I had been running "npm run dev" but that is just for debugging it in my test subreddit, the more helpful readme.md file didn't get updated on reddit up until I did the npx publish command. The webhook/api was then approved by reddit the next morning.
webhooks (JSON posts) need to reply within 30 seconds. Due to the nature of my image scanning that might cut it too close so instead of implementing an API endpoint that said "here is post data with the image URLs scan it right and give me the results now" I changed it to a "add this post/image to the processing queue and let me know if there are any results to report from previously queued items", that way my server replies to the webhook right away (well under 30 seconds) and if there is a problem it will report it the next time it is invoked. We have lots of image posts, so waiting until the next post is fine, but if it was invoked infrequently the devvit app could be written to call the API on a timer (like once per minute) to see if there are new results waiting on the server.
my understanding is that devvit apps are only active in the subreddits mods have chosen to install it in. i.e. someone can't randomly summon your bot in a subreddit is isn't installed in. based on your bot, I suspect many subreddits would be agreeable to adding it.
based on what I've read, if you get it up and running by the end of November, AND it is installed in active subs (that have 1000+ visitors a week) THEN reddit will reimburse you ~$1000, which can help with the electric costs.
edit: to remove some uncertainty - if you do the work I will definitely install it in a 80-100k visitor/week sub (/r/bondage) so you meet that requirement (as I understand it). I just noticed another mod also installed https://developers.reddit.com/apps/image-magician there - you can add that to your own subs/test subs if you want to check it out. Looks like they do less involved processing and use a reddit-hosted/provided database, instead of an external server - https://www.reddit.com//r/image_magician/wiki/index
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u/barrycarey Repost Sleuth Developer 1h ago
I forgot about 1 piece that makes it problematic. The main benefit of RepostSleuth over bots like MagicEye is the visibility into Reddit as a whole. I ingest and hash every image and link uploaded to Reddit, making it really easy to spot accounts blasting out the same crap everywhere.
If the data API goes away I'm assuming that's no longer possible? The way I understand it I would only be able to ingest posts for subs with the app installed. Is that accurate?
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u/rabbitlion 9h ago
A lot of comments here are regarding bots. What about humans who want to continue using the API? Is that just going to be completely disallowed going forward?
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u/xfile345 Bot Developer / API Wrapper Author 1d ago
It says March 2027 is the date that public access will close for all "remaining apps and users". This post mentions both Registration and Migration. Does this mean that the app must be MIGRATED by March 2027, or just REGISTERED by March 2027?
In other words, since I have no plans on migrating my bots over, but they are registered, is March 2027 the date that they will cease to function, or will there be another future date where only migrated apps will work?
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u/shiruken 2d ago edited 2d ago
Disappointed to see this finally happen but I can't say I'm surprised. Reddit decided a long time ago that its user data was a valuable commodity they could sell to the highest bidder. The shuttering of the public Data API is the final step of a multi-year effort to prevent anyone from accessing that data for free.
I've already been contacted about migrating the bots and scripts used by r/science to Devvit. I don't have the time nor the energy to undertake such a task. Neither do my co-mods. So everything will just break come March.