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Raid protection gives your server two automatic detectors — one for unusual join bursts and one for coordinated message floods — plus an emoji-captcha verification gate that screens newcomers before they can interact with the rest of your community. When a raid is detected, Thea either alerts your team or takes action automatically, depending on how you’ve configured it. Moderators can also trigger raid mode manually at any time with a single slash command.

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The Two Detectors

Join-Surge Detector

Monitors how fast new members are joining. When the join rate exceeds your configured threshold within a rolling time window, the detector fires. You set the count and window in Settings → Raid protection.

Content-Storm Detector

Monitors message activity across channels. When a burst of messages matches a suspicious pattern — identical text, similar structure, or content matching known raid scripts — the detector fires. It distinguishes normal high-traffic events from coordinated flooding by looking at structural similarity, not just volume.
Suspicious usernames are screened automatically at join as an additional signal. Accounts with names matching known raider patterns or staff impersonation templates are flagged before they can post.

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Alert Mode vs. Auto Mode

Each detector operates in one of two modes:
Thea sends a notification to your designated staff channel when a detector fires. The alert includes the triggering event, the current join or message rate, and quick-action buttons so staff can respond without leaving Discord. No automatic action is taken — your team decides what to do.
Enable alert mode first and monitor a few real events before switching to auto mode. This helps you confirm your thresholds are calibrated correctly for your server’s normal activity patterns before automated actions go live.

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Emoji-Captcha Verification Gate

When the verification gate is active — either triggered automatically or enabled manually — every new member who joins must solve a short emoji-captcha challenge before gaining access to the rest of the server. The gate integrates with Discord’s membership screening flow. The captcha presents a simple prompt (e.g., “React with 🛡️”) and grants the configured member role only after a correct response. This gates out bots and raiders who join programmatically without human interaction. Welcome messages and onboarding forms remain quiet while raid mode is active, so raiders do not receive welcome pings or form prompts that could be used to flood staff channels.

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Manual Controls: /raid

Moderators can manage raid mode directly from any channel using the /raid command.
Enables raid mode immediately, activating the verification gate and any configured auto-responses.
Disables raid mode and restores normal access for new members.
Shows the current state of raid mode, which detectors are active, and any recent trigger events. Manual activations and deactivations are logged to the moderation ledger with the moderator’s identity and timestamp, the same as automated events.

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Settings

Configure this in Settings → Raid protection.

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Raid detection

When a raid is detected:
  • Alert staff with an arm button
  • Activate raid mode automatically
  • Off — raid mode is manual only
Thresholds (evaluated over a one-minute window):
  • Join surge — distinct joins or recent joiners posting
  • Recent join window (minutes) — how fresh a join counts
  • Identical-message authors — distinct authors posting the same text
  • Automatic raid mode (minutes) — how long auto-activated raid mode lasts
/raid on and /raid off still work regardless of the detector.

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Challenge gate

While raid mode is active, messages from suspect members are removed and they get an emoji check. Passing verifies them permanently. People already in the room are left alone. Staff, bots, and exempt roles are never challenged.
  • Recent join window (hours)
  • Account age (days) — 0 turns this test off
  • Wrong answers allowed — options reshuffle after every miss
  • Fail action: keep removing their messages, kick, or ban

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While raid mode is active

  • Pause invites (default on)
  • Pause DMs
  • Raise verification to High
These use Discord incident actions. Discord lifts them after 24 hours regardless. Needs Manage Server. Ticket SLA pings are also suppressed during a raid.

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Exemptions and alerts

Roles the gate never challenges, plus an alert channel. Members with timeout or message-management permissions are exempt automatically. Without an alert channel, alerts fall back to the AutoMod log.

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Welcome and onboarding

Once a newcomer clears the gate — or joins when raid mode is off — Thea delivers the welcome and grants the join role. Onboarding reminders stay quiet while raid mode is on.

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More /raid commands

verify marks a member as having passed. deverify resets them.