Changelog

Lottery purchasing smoother

Buying 100 lottery tickets now gives you a Buy More Tickets button when you can afford another batch

The 100-ticket limit still applies to each purchase, but members no longer need to rerun the slash command for each batch

Spam account safety

Howli can now react when Discord marks an account as a spammer, using the same Security options as your other safety alerts (you can choose kick, ban, timeout, mute, or log only)

Applies when someone is flagged while they are in your server, when they join already flagged, and when Howli starts it can pick up flagged accounts that were still in the server

Fewer duplicate alerts if Howli restarts for the same situation

Howli's support community sees release notes sooner after startup

Turn on Safety signal alerts under Moderation if you want log messages for these signals, then set what Howli should do under Moderation, Security

The Big One: Leveling, Economy, Gambling, Starboard & More

This update is a massive expansion for Howli, adding months of new features, dashboard tools, and community systems.

Leveling & XP

Earn XP by chatting, level up, and get custom level-up cards

/rank, /leaderboard, and /globalleaderboard show server and global progress

Admins can set announcement channels, role rewards, and custom level-up messages

top.gg voters, Premium servers, and voters in Premium servers receive boosted XP

Moon Rocks

Moon Rocks are Howli’s new account-wide currency

Earn them from chatting, voting, leveling up, daily rewards, and games

Use /balance, /daily, /give, and /richest to manage and compare earnings

Moon Rocks can also be purchased through Discord’s in-app store

Gambling & Lottery

/gamble slots, /gamble coinflip, and /gamble blackjack add wager-based games with rendered visuals

/gamble bet lets members create community betting pools

A global lottery now runs across every server, with tickets, growing jackpots, daily midnight UTC draws, winner DMs, and optional server announcements

Admins can configure lottery announcements from the dashboard

Dice & Giveaways

/roll supports tabletop dice notation, including keep highest/lowest, exploding dice, rerolls, and labels

/rollstats generates D&D-style ability scores

/giveaway create lets you run giveaways with prizes, durations, winner counts, early endings, rerolls, and automatic resolution

Reaction Roles & Suggestions

Reaction Roles let members react to messages to gain or remove roles

Manage role messages, server emoji, and grouped setups from the dashboard

/suggest posts anonymous member suggestions with voting, admin approval/denial, and optional forwarding

Birthday Reminders

Members can set birthdays with /birthday set

Howli can announce birthdays, assign a temporary birthday role, use custom messages, and bulk-import birthdays from the dashboard

Custom Commands & Tickets

Create custom !trigger text commands with {user} and {server} placeholders

Free servers get 25 custom commands, Premium gets unlimited

Premium servers can set up private support ticket channels with transcript logging

Stats Counters & Embeds

Auto-updating voice channels can show live member, human, bot, or booster counts

/embed and the dashboard embed builder let you create rich embeds with previews, fields, authors, images, footers, colors, and editable bot messages

Fun Commands

/action, /emote, and /animal add animated reactions, anime emotes, and random animal images

/8ball and /funfact add quick fun responses

Info Commands

/userinfo, /serverinfo, and /avatar provide quick member and server lookups

Starboard

Messages with enough ⭐ reactions can be reposted to a dedicated starboard channel

Star counts update live, and posts are cleaned up if they fall below the threshold

Configure the channel and threshold from Engagement → Starboard

Vote Rewards

top.gg votes now trigger an automatic DM when registered

Voters receive Moon Rocks immediately, including streak bonuses, and XP boosts activate right away

Dashboard

New panels make the features above manageable without commands

Infractions now have their own section with search, filters, and CSV export

The Gambling panel shows lottery state and announcement settings

NEW: Social Alerts

Howli can now monitor social accounts and post to a channel whenever someone goes live or uploads something new

Supported platforms: Twitch, YouTube, Kick, Bluesky, RSS feeds, and Podcasts

Set a ping role, write a custom message, and build an embed with the embed builder

Tags like {name}, {title}, {game}, {url}, and {thumbnail} fill in with real info when the alert fires

Optionally attach a Watch Live / View Post link button to alerts

Limits are per platform: Free gets 1, Premium and Lifetime get 25

Manage everything from the new Social Alerts panel in the dashboard

Multiple Trap Channels + Auto-Assign Join Roles + Dashboard Embed Builder

NEW: Multiple Trap Channels (Premium)

You can now run up to 5 trap channels in the same server

The first channel is your primary and still set up by using /trapchannel

Use /addtrapchannel to add more and /removetrapchannel to remove them

All channels can also be managed from the dashboard under the Trap Channel panel

Howli sets up the correct permissions automatically when you add a channel

NEW: Auto-Assign Join Roles (Free)

Automatically assign one or more roles to every new member the moment they join. Use /addjoinrole, /removejoinrole, and /viewjoinroles to manage the list via command

Manageable from the dashboard under the Roles panel

Role hierarchy is enforced, Howli won't try to assign a role above her own

Dashboard: Embed Builder Overhaul

Embed builders (Welcome Message and Welcome Role) now open in a popup window instead of expanding inline on the page

Live Discord-style preview updates as you type so you can see exactly what the embed will look like before saving

Embed builders no longer auto-expand when you load the page even if an embed is already configured

The button now reads "Edit embed" when one is saved or "Add embed" when there isn't one yet

Import JSON — paste an embed JSON from anywhere to load it directly into the builder

Export JSON copies your current embed to clipboard as JSON so you can reuse it in another section without redoing it

NEW: Welcome Message on Join (Free)

Brand new feature! Howli can now send a welcome message when users join your server — separate from the existing Welcome Role feature (which fires on role assignment)

Available on all tiers, including Free — no subscription needed

Send plain text, a rich embed, or both

Configure via the new Welcome Message (on Join) card in the dashboard, or use the new slash commands: /setwelcomemessage, /removewelcomemessage, /viewwelcomemessage

Expanded placeholder tags — supported in both Welcome Message and Welcome Role

{user} — mentions the new member

{username} — their username

{usertag} — full user tag

{userid} — their Discord ID

{servername} — your server's name

{membercount} — current member count (e.g. 142)

{membercount:ordinal} — formatted ordinal (e.g. 142nd)

{howl} — inserts one of Howli's random howls

{growl} — inserts one of Howli's random growls

{avatar} — still works as the thumbnail/image URL to show the new member's avatar

{role} — still works in Welcome Role messages for the triggering role mention

Dashboard

New panel card right under Welcome Role on the Overview tab

Full embed builder: color, title, description, thumbnail, footer, up to 10 fields

Tag reference is printed right in the UI so you don't have to guess

Note: Welcome Role (fires on role assignment) remains a Premium feature. Welcome Message (fires on join) is free for everyone.

Backwards compatible — existing Welcome Role configs keep working. New placeholder tags are automatically available everywhere welcome text is used.

Security Auto-Actions + Signal Detection

NEW: Auto-action on suspicious users

Howli can now automatically act on members that get flagged by Discord's own safety systems, the second a flag is detected, Howli is already on it

Three signals are covered: unusual DM activity, AutoMod quarantine (username, bio, or guild tag flagged), and Trust & Safety account quarantine

Choose what Howli does when a signal fires: do nothing, timeout, kick, mute, or ban, this is configurable per server

Timeout duration is fully customizable (hours and minutes), and ban actions let you control how many days of messages to purge (0–7)

NEW: Signal alert logging

Each flagged event gets logged to your mod log channel with details on who was flagged and which signal triggered it

Off by default, turn it on in the dashboard under Moderation

NEW: Dashboard — Security panel

New Security tab in the dashboard sidebar (under Moderation) to configure all of this without touching a command

Timeout and ban options show and hide automatically based on your selected action

How auto-actions work

Every auto-action creates a mod case automatically so nothing goes untracked

Cases are logged to your mod log with the trigger type, action taken, and the offending user

For mute: uses your server's configured mute role and performs a hard mute (all roles stripped, saved for restore on unmute)

Purge Overhaul + Mute Split: Soft Mute & Hard Mute

NEW: /hardmute

Strips all roles from the user and applies only the mute role — full lockout

All stripped roles are saved and automatically restored when the user is unmuted

Supports optional duration (e.g. 30 minutes, 2 hours, 1 day) and reason

Role hierarchy is enforced — Howli won't hard mute someone above her in the role list

/mute is now a soft mute

Adds the mute role while leaving all existing roles intact — use this for minor infractions

Same duration and reason options as before

On unmute, the mute role is simply removed with no role restore needed

/unmute updated

Automatically detects which type of mute was used and handles unmute accordingly

Hard muted users get all their roles back; soft muted users just have the mute role removed

Users muted before this update are treated as hard mutes so no data is lost

Mute Duration Input Improved

Replaced the old separate number + unit dropdown with a single natural text field

Type your duration directly: 30 minutes, 2 hours, 1 day — no more clicking through a dropdown

/purge Overhaul

/purge messages and /purge all subcommands are gone — it's just /purge now

amount is optional — omit it entirely to purge everything within Discord's 14-day window

New filter option targets specific message types: bots, humans, embeds, emoji, files, images, links, mentions

New contains option deletes only messages containing a specific word or phrase

All options stack — combine filter, user, and contains to surgically remove exactly what you want

Moderation Commands — Major Overhaul

NEW: /ban, /kick, /mute, /timeout — Full moderation suite now available as slash commands

Actions post a clean public response in the channel (visible to everyone) and log the full details privately to your mod log — no more cluttered ephemeral-only replies

Howli will now growl or howl after mod actions. It's on-brand. Embrace it.

Howli checks role hierarchy before acting — if a target user's role or the mute role is above Howli's role, you get a clear error explaining exactly what to move in Server Settings → Roles

NEW: /purge messages & /purge all

/purge messages amount:[1-100] — Delete a specific number of messages, optionally filtered to one user

/purge all — Bulk-deletes everything within Discord's 14-day window in one go (loops through the channel automatically)

Both subcommands log a full message transcript to your mod log channel

The purge confirmation auto-disappears after 5 seconds so it doesn't clutter the channel

NEW: /mute & /unmute

Assigns a configurable Mute Role and saves the user's existing roles so they can be fully restored on unmute

Configure the mute role in the dashboard under Moderation → Mute Settings

Supports optional DM notification to the offender and moderator attribution

NEW: /howl

Does exactly what you think it does

Dashboard — Reminders Panel

Edit reminders — Each active reminder now has an Edit button; you can change the channel, message, date, role ping, and repeat schedule without deleting and recreating

Embed reminders can be fully edited too — color, author, title, description, and footer are all editable inline

Datetime input field no longer stretches weirdly on wide screens

Dashboard — Layout & Sizing Fixes

Moderation panel cards (Ban, Kick, Timeout, Warn, Mute) now sit side-by-side at consistent widths instead of stretching full page width

Channel and role dropdowns across all panels are capped at a sensible max width

Auto-Delete, Mute Settings, and Logging panels no longer expand to fill the entire browser window on large screens

Logging channel selection uses a compact two-column grid

Website — Mobile Navigation Fix

The hamburger menu now opens a single unified drawer instead of two overlapping slide-out panels

Stats, Changelog, Feedback and all other links are always visible and in the correct order — no more buttons covering nav items on smaller phones

Fixed issue where non-text channels (voice, categories) could be selected as mod log channels causing errors

Added channel type validation to prevent configuration mistakes

Improved error handling for invalid mod log channel configurations

NEW: Web Dashboard launched! - Manage your server's Howli settings from https://howli.gg

Configure trap channels, mod log, ignore roles, auto-delete, and more from your browser

NEW: Changelog page - View all bot updates and version history on the dashboard

Improved permission checking with visual status indicators

Enhanced server overview with statistics and configuration status

NEW: Welcome Role feature - Send a customizable welcome message when a specific role is assigned to users

Use /setwelcomerole to configure role, channel, and custom message with {user} and {role} placeholders

Use /viewwelcomerole to see current configuration and /removewelcomerole to disable

Perfect for onboarding new members or celebrating role promotions

NEW: Interactive /setup command - Select channels and roles from visual dropdown instead of the old full /slash command method

Setup now displays your current configuration with pre-selected values when reconfiguring

NEW: Role Replacement feature - Automatically remove one role when another is assigned (perfect for verification systems)

Use /setrolereplacement to swap RoleA with RoleB upon assignment

Fixed welcome message formatting and improved permission error guidance

Apologies for the broken update earlier and this second update!

REMOVED all localization features - Bot is now English-only

Why we removed localization:

The automatic language detection was unreliable and caused more problems than it solved (e.g., Spanish servers getting Dutch messages). Rather than maintain complex language detection, we've simplified to English-only so the bot works consistently for everyone. Apologies to those who were enjoying commands in their server's native language.

Added validation to prevent threads and forum channels from being set as trap or mod log channels

Improved channel type checking during configuration

Enhanced permission validation with better error messages

Reduced verbose startup logging for cleaner logs

Added /checkpermissions command to diagnose bot permission issues

Bot now automatically grants itself channel permissions when trap/modlog channels are configured

Added automatic permission verification and fixing on bot startup

Bot now checks for BAN_MEMBERS permission and role hierarchy before attempting bans

Added detailed logging to help diagnose permission and ban failures

Improved error notifications in mod log when bot lacks necessary permissions

Added German and Dutch language support

Added full localization support for 5 languages: English, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, and Thai

All command responses now automatically appear in user's Discord language

Slash command descriptions now show in user's language

Ban counters and mod logs now display in server's detected language

Automatic language detection based on guild names for automated messages

Trap channel warnings appear in appropriate language

Run /registerslashcommands to update command descriptions to your language

Ban messages now show actual trap channel name instead of generic text

Fixed !bancount command to use guild-specific data

Enhanced error handling for ban operations with mod log notifications

Added rate limiting protection (3-second cooldown per user per command)

Improved logging with more detailed error messages

Added /help command with interactive embed showing all available commands

Moved ban counting from global ban-count.json to individual guild configs

Added migration script for existing ban data

Enhanced guild config structure with banStats tracking

Improved data organization and backup capabilities

Fixed slash command registration error (Required options must be placed before non-required options)

Reorganized command options order to comply with Discord API requirements

Removed broadcast system in favor of changelog-based updates

Simplified codebase by removing unused broadcast functionality

Fixed setup command to send the warning message to trap channel

Improved consistency between /setup and /config commands

Enhanced logging for setup command

Added comprehensive setup command for initial configuration

Added broadcast system for bot update announcements

Added guild name tracking and auto-updates

Fixed @everyone role display issue

Improved guild configuration management

Enhanced error handling and logging

Removed dependency on global config.json

Added auto-delete feature for channels (1-14 days)

Enhanced message filtering (skips pinned messages only)