Scheduled Announcements and Night Mode

Introduction

Two common admin chores are repeating the same message on a schedule and quieting the group overnight. Scheduled announcements let the bot post a message for you, once or on a recurring cadence, so you do not have to remember to re-post the rules or a reminder. Night mode mutes the group during a daily window and reopens it afterwards, so a chat in one time zone is not woken up by conversation in another.

Both features are off by default and do nothing until an admin sets them up. Enabling the bot never starts posting announcements or silencing the group on its own.

Scheduled announcements

An admin registers an announcement with the /announce command. The first word after the command is the schedule, and the rest is the text to post. All announcement commands are admin-only.

To schedule a message, use a cadence or the word once followed by the text:

• /announce 6h Read the /rules — post this message every 6 hours.
• /announce once Welcome, the AMA starts at noon. — post this message a single time, then stop.

Recurring cadences are written as durations. Supported units include minutes, hours, days, and weeks, for example 30m, 6h, 1d, and 2w. There is a 5-minute minimum for recurring announcements, so a schedule tighter than five minutes is rejected. One-off announcements (once) are exempt from the minimum because they only fire a single time.

Two more subcommands manage existing announcements:

• /announce list — show the group's current announcements, each with its id.
• /announce del <id> — remove one announcement by its id, for example /announce del 42. Deletion is scoped to your group, so an id from another group cannot be removed by mistake.

Each group has a cap on how many announcements it can hold at once (20). If you reach the cap, remove one before adding another. Once an announcement is saved, a scheduler posts it when it comes due: recurring announcements are re-scheduled for their next run after each post, and one-off announcements are switched off after they fire. If the bot cannot post to a group at the moment an announcement is due (for example the bot was removed), the schedule still advances so the group is not re-checked endlessly.

Night mode

Night mode silences all members during a daily window and restores posting when the window ends. It is controlled by a set of settings in the group dashboard, the main one being set_night_mode_enabled, which is off by default. The window is defined by a start time, an end time, and a UTC offset that maps those times to the group's local clock.

You can configure night mode in two places:

• The dashboard. Open the group in the admin dashboard and set the window under the Auto-Moderation section.
• In chat, with the admin-only /nightmode command.

The /nightmode command accepts a window and a few toggles:

• /nightmode 22:00-07:00 +1 — silence members from 22:00 to 07:00 in a group whose local time is one hour ahead of UTC. The window may cross midnight, as in this example.
• /nightmode on — enable night mode using the saved window.
• /nightmode off — disable night mode. If the group is currently muted by night mode, this also reopens it.
• /nightmode status — show the current window, offset, and whether the group is muted right now.

The times are given in the group's local time, and the trailing offset (for example +1 or -5) is a whole-hour UTC offset that tells the bot how the group's local clock relates to UTC. A scheduler checks the window and locks or unlocks the group at the boundaries, so the transition happens on its own each day.

Admins are unaffected by night mode. The mute applies to ordinary members, so moderators and admins can still post while the group is quiet. This means an admin can drop a late-night announcement even during the silent window.

How night mode and raid lockdown coordinate

Night mode and anti-raid protection both work by locking the group's send permissions, so they share the same underlying lock and coordinate on when to release it. If night mode's window ends while a raid lockdown is still active, the group stays locked for the raid; if a raid lockdown ends while night mode's window is still active, the group stays locked for night mode. The group only reopens when neither feature wants it closed, so one never lifts a lock the other still needs.

Best practices

• Use a recurring announcement for standing reminders such as the group rules, and once for time-limited notices such as an event start.
• Keep the announcement count under the per-group cap by clearing stale entries with /announce list and /announce del <id>.
• Set the night-mode offset carefully so the window matches your members' local clock; check it afterwards with /nightmode status.
• Remember that admins can still post during night mode, so use a non-admin account if you want to confirm the mute is working.

Summary

Scheduled announcements and night mode automate two repetitive admin tasks. /announce posts a message once or on a recurring cadence, with a 5-minute floor for recurring schedules, a per-group cap, and list/del subcommands to manage what is scheduled. Night mode mutes members during a daily window set in local time via a whole-hour UTC offset, leaves admins free to post, and coordinates with raid lockdown so the two never fight over the group lock. Both features stay off until an admin turns them on.