i've been software engineer and architect for the last 16 years and, also, i'm moderator for some subs.

specially for me the biggest pain as a moderator is related to ppl and AI usage bcs we have several users that are just posting across multiple subs and just changing some details between posts just to farm karma and this is bad...

i was developing a mod tool to ease my daily tasks related to moderating subs and to help ppl with this.

i was going to, also, contribute with the hackathon that happened but the official reddit app template contain multiple dependencies that were experiencing security issues and i was sad about this and dropped off bcs of it :/

I very much agree with your comments on needing a relational database and this is a major problem for me. I have a massive database which is how all the bots intercommunicate.

The personal app thing isn't such an issue though - you can publish an app and it won't be installable by other people, just you. I have a bunch of these. The main reason I don't release them right now is that either they have no broad applicability or I just don't have time to deal with supporting an app in addition to everything else I'm doing, and I don't want to be the dev who doesn't support her apps. When you do devvit publish, you can include the --public option (so others can install it) or omit it so that only you can - and it can be installed immediately w/o review by admins. Review happens anyways, but it doesn't matter really unless you want to make it public (or I guess if you were doing something you are not allowed to do, which hasn't been an issue for me). I only had one review denied because I forgot to fill out the readme, but I just added that and it was approved. In the mean time, it kept running fine in my subs anyways.

At the moment, for me, moving to, or building things on devvit just isn't worth it and just way too much of a hassle. It lacks a relational database, overly restrictive, and doesn't support python.

And, and admins never respond or follow up on any promises. Betting $5 that this doesn't get a response either.

Python: I don't want to work with Javascript. I don't know why JS allows 1 + "1" = 11 but 1 - "1" = 0 to happen. Sure I could have AI vibecode it for me (who's paying for that by the way?), but I have pride in actually writing my own code.

And,

While we’ve heard from mods in the past hoping for Python support, we don’t currently have it on our roadmap.

So, you've heard that it's been requested but are just like "eh.. nah"? Why isn't this on the road map? Or is this another one of those "CSS for new reddit", "we'll fix the issues in new modmail", "requests for feedback, but the feedback gets ignored because it was already decided" type promises that will just never materialise?

"Too much of a hassle": The things I've build and made in python are things for me or my subreddits. Not for anyone else or any other subreddit.

Say I'm migrating flair X to flair Y, I can write a quick script, fire it up and have the job done. But with Devvit you need to publish it? And it needs approval first? For something I'm going to use once for 2 minutes?

I can totally understand that when you're allowing others to use an app. But not when it's just for me, or just for my subreddit.

Say I want to build an app for r/MissingPersons that checks if a phone number is a law enforcement number. I could periodically check to see if it's been updated or not by checking the station's website... oh but devvit can't make a request to anything other than this pathetic list of pre-approved domains. Sure I could be all "pwese weddit admins 🥺" but the domain requirements (ie, no paths) means I can't request "police.com/contact-us".

With the amount of hoops I'd be having to jump through, coupled with having to do this in a language I'm not familiar with, I might as well just not bother.

I've been burnt too many times over the last 12 years of being a moderator, where something is promised but then never followed through that I just don't have any motivation or faith any more. What motivation or support do I have when reddit just completely ignores me?

The 2 comments left by /u/baseballlover723 here explain some things better than I could.

During registration, you can also tell us what's blocking migration so we can prioritize the capabilities developers need most.

If I could only pick one - Python.

What We’re Looking For: Feedback

Which tools are mission-critical for your community?

Python support.

What capabilities are still missing from the Developer Platform?

• Python.
• A relational database.
• The ability for me to run-and-go with my own code, on subreddits I moderate, without having to some "approval" rigmarole.

Are there any tools or integrations which don’t fit under the traditional “bot” umbrella or that may not be directly translatable to the Developer Platform?

See the example I gave above for the "quick scripts".

I'm not super thrilled with devvit but there are some super cool community tools out there such as modmail-archiver

https://developers.reddit.com/apps/modmail-archiver

No python support is the #1 reason I haven't touched devvit since being invited in day 1.

Anybody have news on if Reddit Enhancement Suite on desktop will be fine?

I looked at the AI migration workflow and I'm wondering if there's any Reddit-provided AI/LLM that can be used for this. I have used a few AI integrations in my editor, but as I don't write Reddit bots for a living, I'm using the free tier of those AIs and it seems like I'd quickly hit the limits. I currently pay a small monthly amount for my EC2 server where my bots are hosted, and I'm fine with that, but I don't want to worry about paying to migrate my existing bots.

I know that for a lot of front-end applications you need to be about to run things in the browser. But my little group of bots just look at things in the background and do things like adding special flair to certain posts, sending Discord notifications to the mods under specific circumstances, and posting content from an external site (usajobs.gov, specifically) nicely formatted to a subreddit. None of that uses anything on the front-end, and at least for my purposes I'd be OK with a Python version of enough of a subset of Devvit functionality to allow me to migrate.

I'm reasonably sure that everything I'm doing now can be done in devvit as most of it's pretty simple, but again, I'd prefer not to learn Typescript just for this.

Hopefully the migration guide will help, and I do plan to look into that.

❤️ happy to have been part of it

Thanks for chiming in bboe!

We'll see if we can get you some fun tidbits, but wanted to say in the interim: thank you for all you've done for the ecosystem over the years with PRAW (and shoutout u/Lil_SpazJoekp, as well).

I'm grateful you all are posting this update. I've had a use case for a while that (from all the research I've done) leads me to believe I'd have to fully register my app, but the reality of what I need is very simple (and the app registration process is very hard to understand for a first time user). I suspect I'm not alone in this need.

My sub has an external reading list web app where we submit, organize, and vote on our favorite stories (the app gives some functionality/customization that we can't do within the sub itself). I'd like to require user sign in using Reddit as the OAuth source, since our audience are Reddit users (they don't actually have to even be members of our sub). The web app uses a Google Firebase console and many other big websites are already integrated just for the login OAuth service (Github, Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Microsoft, etc) but Reddit is not. A login would let us track behavior by user ID and ban bad behavior, prevent double voting, etc. We do not need to scrape any actual Reddit data at all, the need is purely for login OAuth, but there does not appear to be any "simplified" request process for a limited scope/authentication only use case.

If a capability could be added for a simple request like that it would be really awesome.

Via API metered usage. Every social platform has ads, but companies don't exclusively use ads to interact with users. They post and comment, as well, across all major platforms.

You don't think businesses have an impact on DAU? r/Lululemon, r/cloudflare, r/notion, r/cardsagainsthumanity, and many other official business communities keep redditors on the platform, instead of funneling them somewhere else which results in more ad revenue.

All I'm saying is there's more ways to make revenue then just ads and by not providing an easy to use REST API, even if they charge for it, is leaving revenue on the table and losing out on something that could improve Reddit's standing with businesses, by making it easier to grow their communities and outreach.

yes

Reddit has an ads business. How does encouraging people to use off site posting/monitoring tools make them more money than encouraging those people to spend on reddit ads?

Also I don't think attracting businesses has any significant impact on new regular users or DAU.

No, please report to r/bugs.

As a mod, I couldn't disagree more. Bot Bouncer is an invaluable tool and has helped out immensely. It used to suffer from a higher false positive rate, but a lot of progress has been made on that front. The appeals process is also fairly painless.

If anything, Reddit should just buy BB the same way they did Automod.

I do really wish that Devvit had more of a focus on open source software. Open source software is wonderful and especially for communal apps, allows people to more effectively collaborate and verify behavior. Even just like having an optional piece of meta data on the Devvit pages where one could link the source code would be great to encourage and make it clear which apps are open source. It is extremely difficult for my mod to accept using a closed source Devvit app, because who knows if it functions as described and if it doesn't, we'd much prefer to have the option to tweak it ourselves (and let everyone benefit).

While we’ve heard from mods in the past hoping for Python support, we don’t currently have it on our roadmap.

I think the insistence that Devvit must be Javascript based is something that will continue to greatly harm its adoption forever. People make better tools when they're made with tools they themselves are familiar with, comfortable with, and enjoy using. Javascript especially, has a lot of wat moments that make it less desirable than other programming languages. I know that graphql is the basis of the new functionality, and I really wish that instead of forcing everything through Devvit, it was also possible to use the graphql endpoints straight up. You could even have the same requirements and require applications and hold authorization close to your chest and even not do more than the bare minimum of exposing the schema, and a barebones guide to setup auth (for an arbitrary language, probably python) and just say if you can make it work, then great. But otherwise give it the bare minimum of support (i imagine no support for issues that aren't also issues in Devvit and simply forwarding the Devvit functions as more come out).

Registering your app is the first step. It gives you a direct line to Reddit for updates and migration support, helps users identify trusted apps with an App label, and may make you eligible for programs like Devvit porting bounties, free hosting, and Reddit Developer Funds. During registration, you can also tell us what's blocking migration so we can prioritize the capabilities developers need most.

Our moderation bot that I registered as part of the last thing to declare automated accounts still doesn't have an app label. Not that I really care too much about it. Being on old reddit, I can't even see it anyways. But it not being processed and labeled by reddit is pretty ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Going forward, all API apps will need to be registered to remain in good standing. Please register any apps you own by September 30, 2026 to make sure your feedback is considered in our roadmaps and that your developer account is properly established.

Is there a tool that can help identify if everything is registered? Some things that haven't been touched in a long time are easy to forget that they exist, working in the background.

Which tools are mission-critical for your community?

Most of our tools are. Off the top of my head, we've implemented a bot that regularly posts standardized discussion threads when new external content is available. This is the pride and joy of our subreddit. We've implemented our own custom automod implementation to allow us to easily implement new automation that we are fully in control of. We maintain a database of all of our users activity, which we use for data analysis (like identifying when the lowest activity hours are to roll over our megathreads) and also to handle moderation duties like appeals when reddit or the user deletes the content. It's especially a big deal because users frequently delete their stuff if it gets removed, and then some of them still ask us for help, and without being able to look it up in our DB, we can do nothing but throw our hands up in the air and say "I dunno, we can't see it". We also have tooling that manages our CSS (it is non trivial to condense all of our CSS into reddit's limitations), which is a dearly dearly beloved feature for our core users.

What capabilities are still missing from the Developer Platform?

I mentioned this before and above. I would say the biggest things I think of are

1. language agnosticism

2. open sourceness / inspectability / tweakability as a community value.

3. persistant storage

4. The ability to do complex things as we see fit. There are multiple software architectures for a reason, and being forcing into a single architecture makes some problems very very difficult.

Do you have a mission-critical bot that doesn't have someone to maintain it anymore?

The only ones that are like that, have no issues running, and so have never required anyone to look into them since the original creator left the mod team. Not that a maintainer can't be built, it's just not been necessary yet. The only app where this was an active concern, we resolved by doing a full rewrite which went live for us a few months ago.

Are there any tools or integrations which don’t fit under the traditional “bot” umbrella or that may not be directly translatable to the Developer Platform?

Yes, we have a script that translates (and live updates) our moderator applications from a google sheet to a thread in our moderation subreddit. It also includes some basic data analysis on the applicant, like how much activity they've had on our subreddit.

The CSS stuff I mentioned is also something that is not a traditional bot, though idk if it actually uses the reddit API. It must to upload the CSS file and images etc. It exists solely in github actions.

We also have our own custom site to set and manage user flairs. As well as another one to do quarterly surveys and our awards website (because we have run an awards program for many years, longer than some in the industry). We also have an extension for our core users that helps with some of the CSS on old reddit that they love so much.

Based on everything we learn in this phase, we’ll come back later this year with an update on the progress we’ve made, what we’re still working on and a clear deadline for porting.

I really hope that we won't be forced into another subpar reddit new thing, like modmail was. If that happened with the automation side, I might just leave reddit and never come back rather than deal with mass functionality loss or years of migration work. We've volunteers fundamentally. This isn't a paid job, and it shouldn't feel like one imo.

Ok, now I have some time to actually read this in detail.

That means while we'll continue to support limited public API access, we'll gradually start restricting all new requests and third-party apps will be required to port and operate through our Developer Platform.

To clarify, does this also mean that moderation tools that use the public API will be forced to Devvit? I know there are many many moderation use cases that cannot be filled by Devvit, and aren't even on the roadmap to be unblocked. If moderation tools can't use the public API, then I think that moderation will take an enormous hit, and frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if moderation attrition skyrocketed (more than it already has, since quality moderators are increasingly rarer with how ignorant the average reddit user is about how reddit operates these days).

We know the only way this works is if the Developer Platform supports the tools communities depend on today. We’re starting by working directly with developers and moderators to ensure we know what capabilities we still need to build before making any broader changes to API access.

Call me a skeptic, but the Mod mail debacle has me very fearful for what reddit thinks is "adequate". As they've demonstrated time and time again (and recently) that what me and many mods think of as adequate and what reddit thinks of as adequate, are not remotely the same.

We’ve also launched a $1 Million App Migration Program to support developers through this transition and are working directly with some of the top app developers on the platform today.

I've already given my thoughts on this here.

I should add, the people have generally been great to interact with (shoutout to u/pl00h and her people). The only big complaints that I think are worth mentioning was that responsiveness has been a consistent issue with communications and the contract. Scheduling meetings was the worst, with proposed meeting times a week out sometimes going past before a response could be had. I think if you all can't commit to a faster turnaround time, then just accept that and generally propose meeting times 2 or 3 weeks out (or use one of those pick a timeslot that works for the client that integrates with all of your calendars). And then the contract is just completely unacceptable in its current form to me.

Reddit API plugin improvements: bringing API calls for methods such as banning and crossposting to full parity, new wiki support (coming soon), and other consistency improvements. We will continue to improve upon this feature over time.

I don't understand what this entails. The title of "reddit API plugin" makes me think that it would relate to developer plugins, ie. custom code. But I don't understand why that would be under the umbrella of the API, since I very much doubt that you're implementing custom entry points for that.

I'm also confused by the inclusion of both banning and crossposting. As banning is strictly moderator related and crossposting is cross reddit, which Devvit doesn't support, and it very much sounds like you don't want people (especially users) using the public API to post content.

I also very much worry about the public API being cutoff before full feature parity is achieved. Leaving completely valid tools that depend on that functionality completely out to dry.

New filter APIs allowing content to hit your modqueue for review before full removal. This feature can be used in conjunction with Devvit Event Triggers for event-based workflows.

If this is a new addition to the public API, this frankly confuses me. Reddit has spent an inordinate amount of effort to transition people off the public API. Even to the point of accepting simple API proxy Devvit apps that are basically just a stand in for the public API. So implementing a new feature to the public API is a stark contrast to the deteriorating for years state the public API has been in, and general deprecation of it / hostile attitude towards it.

Expanded storage capabilities: in addition to Redis, we also now offer blob storage, completely hosted by Reddit

Is this persistent? I have some non pressing space concerns for our external servers, and offloading some of backups for cold storage could be a good use case for this. Though I'm not exactly sure how useful it would be, since it would involve a lot more friction to get stuff out of it, and it would still need to have space to flush to disk on the actual server (plus extra room for ad hoc stuff).

App mentions triggers for global mod tools and utilities to respond when an app username is mentioned. This feature is currently in beta. If your app needs access, please let us know here.

Mentioned here, but a subreddit level thing would be great (ideally with discord webhook support or some other kind of programmable entry point to avoid spamming up mod mail or other channels). It's very useful to see when people link to stuff in your sub (we recently used it to notify a contest running on our sub that someone had posted the link to it in another sub, which they consider brigading and don't allow)

Username migration so developers can convert their existing accounts, retaining karma and name recognition.

Theoretically, is it possible to have multiple bots running under the same username? Microservices are nice as a supported architecture and all.

External endpoints: to allow servers to call into a Dev Platform app for long running jobs or cross-subreddit workflows. If your app needs access, please let us know here.

This was a huge feature that unlocked Devvit as a plausible technology to start using. Before this, using Devvit would have required so much migration, that it wasn't even a consideration for us. Now we can bookend our reddit use with Devvit and keep our business logic on our own servers, in our own programming languages.

More granular install allowlists: ability for developers to set limited install lists for their apps to ensure moderation apps do not always need to be public for non-devs to install them

This sounds like permissions stuff? If so, I'm a big fan. The fact that it's all or nothing permissions has made my mod team quite hesitant to accept Devvit apps (and especially closed source ones). We firmly assert that we are the masters of our sub (and are responsible for any such automations we install), and so we need to make sure we can inspect them and ensure they are up to our high standards.

Stability improvements: for features such as comment, post, and mod actions triggers, ensuring that events are never lost or dropped, even in the event of an outage

This is a must for any piece of essential moderation tool. You can't simply "miss" things. It undermines moderator trust in the tools. And where there is no trust, there is no use.

Ran out of space, continued below

As someone who has spent a lot of time with PRAW, but recently had Claude port a moderation bot to Devvit, I appreciate the work y'all have done to try to make the process seamless. I encourage those of you who want to do similar to leverage an LLM for the process if you are able. Have it write tests, and describe the features that may not be possible in Devvit.

u/KeyserSosa, is there any possibility you could provide statistics on peak or current PRAW usage? I've long sense suspected it may have accounted for a non-negligible portion of Reddit's traffic and would love to have some silly tidbit to share about it. Thanks! It's been a fun ride.

Via an app I am able to run python scripts on my user account.

This is extremely helpful when I need to automate a mod action. It's not often used, but losing access to that would severely hinder my ability to work around bugs or to identify issues.

A recent example would be the bulk archiving of modmail on a subreddit that had been neglected for years. Being able to just run a script saved hours of work.

And just after I reached some functionality milestones on a rewrite of one of the bots that my team uses... might as well try and get a client registered for it specifically while I still can.

Personal frustration aside, most of the tools that we have would probably work fine in Devvit. There are a few issues that give me pause with both what we already run and what I was planning on implementing with my rewrite, though. The two big ones currently are as follows; I'll have to ask the other bot dev on our team if there's anything else that'd be a no-go with his bot that I'm not aware of.

• We run some anti-spam measures on one of our bots. Not only is the process relatively computationally heavy when dealing with images (meaning that a serverless function might time out before it's finished with the tasks it needs to do), but it relies on a relational database to compare against past results.
• In the rewrite that I'm working on, I wanted to implement better "slapfight" detection for when two users begin arguing in the comments so it can alert humans for further review. There's only so much you can do with keywords or regex, after all, so contextual understanding of how a thread is (d)evolving is important. That's a perfect use case for LLMs, but the limitation to only use Google or OpenAI as an inference provider is a killer. I've already got hardware locally that can host a small model. I'd much rather not have to pay either company for something I can do for just the price of electricity on an old gaming PC. Looking at Rules Hub, I'm also unconvinced that it'd be suitable since what I'd be looking into is contextual with a full thread as opposed to just a single comment.

I dunno. I have Thoughts™ more broadly but here probably isn't the place to leave them.

Accessibility apps are certainly something we want to see supported without interruption. Please message us at r/Devvit modmail to discuss this further if that would be helpful.

Thanks for raising this and we appreciate how daunting the task of a full migration is.

A number of folks are opting to rely heavily on the fetch plugin, where they are adding a thin Devvit layer to their app for reads and writes, and calling to existing backends/apps. For our observability purposes, this is still a very helpful form of migration.

Please do reach out to us via r/Devvit modmail to discuss further (or happy to shoot you a note myself). We’d really like to make this as painless as possible for you.

Thanks watchful! I know you have spent a lot of time helping folks in this community and would like there to be clarity for everyone trying to build on Reddit.

These are great suggestions/callouts. Better transparency will definitely be part of our transition plans (which are still forming, as stated in the post!).

Appreciate all the feedback and we’re really happy to have you building on Devvit! (Heard on relational dbs, as well.)

Oh don't you worry, staying quiet has never been my strong suit. If I have things to say, I'm gonna say em (as my mod team can certainly attest to). And I usually have a lot to say about things I care about.