Moderation

There's no "mod" role in HowlCast. The broadcaster moderates directly, using GetStream's built-in chat moderation tools.

Why no mod role

DESIGN-DECISIONS.md explicitly removes mod assignment. Reasoning:

Single broadcaster product — small chat
Adding mods adds DB tables, role checks, audit logs, UI surfaces, abuse vectors
GetStream Chat already ships pin / delete / ban / mute in their dashboard

For a den-sized audience this is enough. If you outgrow it, the path forward is "use GetStream's built-in mod assignment" rather than "build a parallel role system".

Moderating during a stream

Inline (preferred)

The broadcaster's chat client (signed-in dashboard or popout) shows mod actions on hover for any message:

📌 Pin — promotes a message to the pinned banner above the chat
🗑 Delete — removes the message from everyone's view
🔇 Mute user — they can read but not write
🚫 Ban user — they get kicked from the channel

These come from stream-chat-react's default UI. The signed-in broadcaster's JWT has the role required.

From GetStream dashboard

GetStream Chat dashboard → Chats → pick channel → message log. You can see, delete, and ban from here without being live.

Per-user permanent demotion

To strip an invited viewer's chat-write access permanently:

bun run db:execute:remote --command 'UPDATE profiles SET is_invited = 0 WHERE user_id = "<id>"'

After this, their composer locks immediately on next refresh — LockedComposerOverlay shows "Sign in to chat" overlay.

UI for this is on the roadmap. Open an issue if you need it sooner.

Pinned message default

The chat dock ships with a default pinned message:

Be useful or be silent. No spoilers without /spoiler.

Edit it in apps/web/src/components/channel/channel-page.tsx — search for <PinnedMessage>. Future: surface this as a dashboard setting.

Spam mitigation

GetStream Chat handles per-channel rate-limits server-side. The HowlCast layer adds a 5/hour throttle on branding.upload, but no rate limit on chat messages — that's GetStream's job.

If you start seeing spam patterns GetStream isn't catching, file an issue. Adding kv-throttle per-user on message.new is a 30-line addition.

Next: Streamer Mode.