Last updated August 16, 2026
General
A case-management layer for Discord moderation teams. It captures evidence the moment a report or flag is filed, merges duplicate reports into a single case, and routes alerts to your mod channel, so a small or thin mod team can actually keep track of what's going on.
No. HarborBot doesn't filter words, auto-mute, or auto-ban anyone. It's built to sit beside a bot like MEE6, Wick, or Carl-bot, not replace it. Those handle automatic enforcement; HarborBot handles organizing the evidence and judgment calls a human mod still has to make.
No. Case merging, join-pattern risk tags, evidence capture: all of it is plain rule-based logic, not a language model. No sentiment analysis, no AI deciding who's at fault. That's a deliberate choice, not a missing feature. It keeps behavior predictable and keeps a human in the loop for every real decision.
Only Discord users who currently hold the “Manage Server” permission on that specific server, or anyone that server's owner has explicitly added as a Crewmate. Case data for one server is never visible from another, and regular members can only file reports; they can't view case details.
No. Filing a report never messages, warns, or otherwise alerts the reported user. Only the reporter (an ephemeral reply) and your configured mod alert channel find out a case was opened.
The invite requests View Channel, Send Messages, Embed Links, Read Message History, and Manage Roles. Manage Roles is only ever used to grant HarborBot's own role View Channel, Send Messages, or Embed Links in a channel it's missing them in; it never touches another role or member. It never requests Administrator, Kick Members, Ban Members, or Manage Server.
Getting started
Run /dock set-alert-channel #channel in Discord, or pick it from the dropdown on the dashboard's Settings page. Both do the exact same thing. Either way, HarborBot checks it can actually post there before saving, so a permissions gap gets caught immediately instead of failing silently later.
A fixed 20 messages from the channel a report was filed in, snapshotted the moment the report fires, before the reported message can be deleted.
/report is open to any member. It's how someone flags a problem for a mod to look at. /flag is mod-only, for a mod manually opening a case without waiting for a member report. Both feed into the same case system.
Usually a permissions gap in a specific channel: Discord channel overwrites can block a role's server-wide access, which is common for a locked-down mod-only channel. HarborBot tries to fix this automatically the moment it notices (see the next question). If it still can't post there afterward, that channel is one of the rare ones blocking the automatic fix too, so grant HarborBot's role View Channel, Send Messages, and Embed Links directly (right-click the channel → Edit Channel → Permissions).
No, and we'd recommend against granting it. Administrator gives a bot unrestricted reach over the entire server, including channels members intentionally hid from bots and mods. HarborBot's invite instead requests the narrower Manage Roles permission, which only lets it edit its own role's access to a channel: never another role's or a member's, and never anything server-, kick-, ban-, or channel-management related. With Manage Roles in place, HarborBot self-heals: the moment it notices it's missing View Channel, Send Messages, or Embed Links somewhere, it grants those to itself automatically, so the mod-channel dropdown and /lockdown work in every channel (including ones created after it joined) without you touching each channel's permissions by hand. The one thing Manage Roles can't fix is a channel that also explicitly denies Manage Roles to every role, which blocks the automatic fix too. That's the rare case that still needs a manual grant.
No. A closed case never absorbs a new report, even inside the merge window. A fresh report against someone with a closed case opens a brand-new case instead of silently reopening the old one.
Not yet from the dashboard or a command; it's a fixed 60 minutes for every server today. Reports on the same user within that window merge into one case; outside it, a new one opens.
Both. Each snapshot includes the message text plus attachment URLs (images, files, and so on) for every captured message, not just the reported one.
Case management
Yes, from the case detail page in the dashboard. Reopening also cancels that case's retention countdown, since only closed cases are ever eligible for auto-deletion.
It marks one mod as the person handling it, so the rest of the team can see at a glance who's on it instead of duplicating investigation work. It's independent of open and closed; a case can be open and claimed at the same time.
Yes. On the case detail page, check the reports you want to separate out and hit “Unmerge selected into a new case.” They move to a fresh case for the same user, and any evidence already captured on the original case is duplicated onto the new one too, since evidence isn't tracked per-report. You can't unmerge every report off a case; at least one has to stay behind.
Crewmates
A way to give someone mod-level access to your server's dashboard, full case management, without giving them real “Manage Server” permission on Discord itself. Useful for a trusted mod who doesn't otherwise have elevated Discord permissions.
From the dashboard's Crew page, generate a one-time code and share it with the person. They sign in and enter it on the Join Ship page, which sends you a request. You approve it from the Crew page, and the code is used up. Small Harbor (free) allows a couple of Crewmates per server; Safe Harbor and Big Harbor remove that cap.
Everything case-related: view, claim, close, and delete cases, same as anyone with Manage Server. They can't touch a server's Settings or Crew page, and never see billing or plan information; that stays owner-only.
Yes, from the Crew page. An owner can remove any Crewmate; a Crewmate can only remove themselves.
Data & retention
As long as a case is open or claimed, indefinitely: nothing auto-deletes it. Once you close a case, if auto-delete is turned on for your server (Settings page), it's removed after your retention window: a fixed 14 days on the free tier, or your choice of 7/14/21/30 days on Premium.
Everything for that server (cases, evidence, flags, Crewmates, invites) gets deleted automatically, whether you kick the bot or delete the server itself. There's no grace period, so make sure you're done with any open cases before removing it.
Yes, from the case's detail page in the dashboard. This also deletes its evidence and can't be undone.
No. Evidence capture only ever looks at the text channel a report or flag was filed in. HarborBot doesn't join, record, or monitor voice channels at all.
Nothing right away. You get a 500-member grace window with a dashboard banner and a mod-chat heads-up first. Stay over the grace threshold without upgrading to Big Harbor and HarborBot scales back: shorter evidence capture, forced short case retention, and duplicate reports stop merging. Drop back under the cap or upgrade and it reverts automatically.
Premium & feedback
Safe Harbor ($4.99/mo per server) adds case notes, claiming, and export, a mod on-call dashboard with coverage-gap alerts, smart DM escalation, custom escalation rules, unlimited Crewmates, and analytics. Big Harbor ($7.99/mo per server) includes everything in Safe Harbor and removes the 5,000-member cap. Both are purchased directly inside Discord, run /premium in your server to see purchase buttons, or see the Premium page in the dashboard for the full breakdown.
Through Discord itself; Premium is a real Discord subscription, not something HarborBot bills separately. Manage or cancel it from your Discord User Settings under Subscriptions, or from the server's Integrations settings.
Every server gets a permanent link on the dashboard's Invite tab (or run /invite in Discord). Share it, and when it's used to add HarborBot to a server you don't already own, your server earns 14 days of Big Harbor. That stacks up to 4 times a year, so a handful of referrals can cover a full year of Premium. Adding the bot to a server you already own doesn't count.
Use the Send Feedback form in the dashboard. It goes straight to the team.
Open the feedback form →