Honeypot

Honeypot lets you turn one or more channels into traps. Any member who posts in a honeypot channel is sanctioned automatically and their message is deleted — no moderator action needed.

It is designed to catch spammers, self-bots, and compromised accounts that blast every channel they can see, while legitimate members who follow your rules never trigger it.

🍯 How it works

You mark one or more channels as honeypot channels.

When a member who is not exempt sends a message in one of those channels, YAWBDB:

  1. Deletes the message.
  2. Applies the action you configured (ban, kick, mute, or warn).
  3. Optionally sends the member a DM explaining what happened.
  4. Logs the trigger.

Example: a #do-not-post channel placed where curious or automated accounts will find it. Real members have no reason to post there — bots that spam every channel out themselves instantly.

⚙️ Actions

You choose a single action that applies whenever the honeypot is triggered.

🔨 Ban

Removes and blocks the member from the server.

👢 Kick

Removes the member from the server. They can rejoin with a new invite.

🔇 Mute

Times the member out for a configurable duration (in minutes).

⚠️ Warn

Logs the trigger only — no Discord punishment is applied. Useful to test your setup or to monitor a channel without acting on it.

🛡️ Exempted roles

Members holding any exempted role never trigger the honeypot.

Add your admin, moderator, and bot roles here so your team can post freely in trap channels without being sanctioned.

Bots are always ignored, including YAWBDB itself.

📢 Warning embed

You can optionally have the bot keep a warning embed in each honeypot channel, telling members not to post there.

Use a warning embed when the honeypot is meant as a visible deterrent ("posting here results in an instant ban"). Leave it off when you want the channel to look like a normal one and quietly catch offenders.

✉️ DM on trigger

You can optionally send the sanctioned member a direct message explaining the action.

DMs may fail silently if the member has direct messages disabled or does not share the server anymore (for example after a ban).

📋 Logging

Honeypot triggers are logged so you keep a record of every catch.

Own log channel

When enabled, the bot posts a detailed embed for every trigger to a log channel you choose: the user, the channel, the message content, and the action taken.

You can turn this off entirely.

🔗 Honeypot and Server Logs

When the Server Logs feature is active and has a Moderation log channel configured, honeypot triggers flow into that stream automatically, alongside manual, Automod, and Anti-Raid actions.

In that case the honeypot's own log channel is bypassed, so each trigger is logged once — not twice. If you disable Server Logs (or its Moderation category), the honeypot falls back to its own log channel.

🔗 Honeypot and Moderation

Every honeypot hit (except plain warns) is recorded in the member's sanction history, exactly like a manual sanction, tagged with the source Honeypot.

This means honeypot bans and mutes appear in moderation history, count toward the member's record, and — where applicable — can generate appeal links the same way other sanctions do.

The triggering message is included in the sanction reason so you always know what was posted.

👍 Recommended setup

  1. Create a channel real members have no reason to post in (for example a clearly labelled #do-not-post, or a decoy that looks like a giveaway or verification channel).
  2. Mark it as a honeypot channel.
  3. Exempt your staff and bot roles.
  4. Start with mute or warn while you confirm the setup behaves as expected, then switch to kick or ban.
  5. Enable a warning embed if you want it to act as a deterrent, or leave it off for a silent trap.
  6. Make sure Server Logs (or an own log channel) is configured so you can review catches.

💡 Best practices