Initial Setup

A quick check to avoid friction:

• You need to be the server owner or have an assigned admin role.
• Arkanis must be invited to the server (Adding the Bot).
• The bot needs Manage Channels, Manage Roles, Send Messages, Embed Links, and Read Message History. Step 2 will verify this for you.
• Decide roughly which features you want — you can change your mind anytime.

The first screen shows server-type presets plus a “Start from scratch” card:

• Gaming Community — Players, Enforcement, Cases, Moderation, AutoMod
• General Community — Cases, Moderation, AutoMod
• Roleplay — Players, Moderation, Cases
• Staff Team — Cases, Moderation, AutoMod
• Content Creator — Moderation, AutoMod
• Start from scratch — no features pre-selected

Each preset is a starting template, not a lock-in — the next step lets you toggle individual features freely.

Pre-flight check that the bot has the Discord permissions it needs before we touch your server. The wizard ticks each permission off:

• Required: Manage Channels, Manage Roles, Send Messages, Embed Links, Read Message History.
• Recommended: View Audit Log (richer event log), Moderate Members (timeouts).

If anything required is missing, the wizard shows a one-click Re-invite bot button that merges in the standard permission set without removing what you've configured. You can Skip — I'll fix this later, but Apply will fail at the end if the bot still lacks a required permission.

Each feature group is a toggle. The preset you chose in Step 1 pre-fills these, but everything is adjustable. Steps 5, 6, and 7 only render if their feature is on.

Bulk actions

• Enable all (free) — turns on every free feature.
• Enable all (free + Pro) — same plus Pro-gated features. Locked icon shown if you're not on Pro; clicking opens the upgrade page.
• Disable all — clears every toggle.
• Reset to preset — restores the Step 1 preset selection.

Per-group sub-features

Each group with sub-features (e.g. AutoMod rule types) has an Enable all sub-features link to flip them on at once.

Arkanis needs a place to log events and a staff role to gate moderator actions. Based on the features you picked in Step 3, you may also be asked to configure an announcement channel. The Foundation step also makes the auto-grant decision (see below) — the most consequential single choice in the wizard.

For each item you have three options:

The single channel where Arkanis writes moderation events, case activity, identity links, and system alerts. Required.

Recommendation: create a new #arkanis-log channel that's only visible to staff. The wizard applies the right permission overwrites automatically (deny @everyone view, allow staff role read).

The Discord role used to gate staff-facing actions and to grant access to staff-only channels (log, transcripts, staff-notes). Required if you enable Cases or Enforcement.

If you already have @Moderator or @Staff, point at it. Otherwise let the wizard create @Arkanis Staff and assign it to your moderators after Apply. The picker has an info icon listing exactly what staff can and can't do, so you're not handing out permissions blindly.

Auto-grant marks a role as “fully authorized.” Anyone holding it bypasses every Arkanis capability check — treated as if they had every permission the bot can grant. This is the wizard's default for the server's highest non-managed role so admins aren't locked out the moment setup completes.

You pick one of three:

• Highest role (default) — the top non-managed role in your role list (typically Admin/Owner) gets auto-grant. Recommended for almost everyone.
• Staff role — the role you picked above. Use this only if your staff role is small and trusted with everything; otherwise prefer the default.
• None — no role gets auto-grant. The server owner is still covered by a hardcoded shortcut, but every other admin will need explicit capability grants from the permissions panel before they can use staff features. Wizard shows a warning.

You can change this any time from Roles & Permissions → toggle Auto-grant on the role row.

Optional. Where the /announce and /say commands post by default. Only requested if Moderation is enabled in Step 3.

Skipping is fine — you can pass a channel explicitly to the commands instead, or set it later in Settings.

Conditional — only shown if Enforcement is enabled. Pick a strike preset and a rules preset, then decide whether users can appeal. A live strike-ladder preview updates as you change settings — you see exactly what'll happen at each threshold before applying.

Controls strike point values and expiry:

• Lenient — minor strikes worth 1pt, expire in 30 days
• Balanced — minor 1pt / major 2pt, expire in 90 days (recommended default)
• Strict — all strikes 2pt, expire in 180 days
• Custom — set your own values in /dashboard/{guildId}/enforcement-rules later

Controls what auto-actions trigger at strike thresholds. Free tier gets a fixed auto-ban threshold; Pro lets you pick:

• Simple — auto-ban at N points, no intermediate steps
• Escalating — warn → mute → kick → ban at increasing thresholds
• DM-first — notify players before each action escalates

Toggle: Allow users to appeal strikes and bans. When on, the wizard:

• Adds an appeal-flagged button to the starter case panel.
• Auto-creates a staff-notes channel in your Support Inbox category for staff to deliberate on appeals (per-server, not per-case).

When users submit appeals, staff review them in a private case channel with three decision buttons: Approve (auto-unbans), Reject, or Pending. See Appeals for the full workflow.

Conditional — only shown if Cases is enabled. The wizard creates a real Discord category named Support Inbox (or whatever you choose) that houses everything case-related: the panel post channel, the transcript channel, the optional staff-notes channel, and every open case channel.

See Support Inbox for the category structure and permission overwrites in detail.

When a case closes, Arkanis posts a saved transcript (HTML/text) to a transcripts channel inside the Support Inbox category. The wizard creates this channel as staff-only — @everyone view denied, staff role allowed read-only.

Required if Cases is enabled. You can rename it inline before creation.

A staff-only channel inside the Support Inbox category, auto-created when Appeals is on in Step 5. It's a single per-server channel where staff discuss appeals and case decisions privately — not a per-case channel.

Permissions: @everyone view denied, staff role allowed read & write.

Pro-gated toggle. Lets users DM the bot to open a case channel without clicking a panel button. The bot relays both directions.

Off by default. Turning it on adds the modmail handler; the case it creates lives in the Support Inbox category like any other case.

Conditional — only shown if Players is enabled. Configure how members link their game accounts and (optionally) gate access on verification.

Toggle any combination of providers members can use to link an account. All providers are free:

• Steam — Steam OpenID (no API key needed)
• Xbox / Microsoft — Xbox Live OAuth via Microsoft account
• Alderon Games — manual-entry ID for Alderon servers

Toggle: require members to link at least one identity before they can access the rest of the server. When on, the wizard renders the verified/unverified role pickers below; when off, they stay hidden so you don't end up with leftover roles.

If on, the gate also unlocks the OAuth-only sub-toggle (rejects manual ID entry; produces a stronger verification badge).

Only shown when the verification gate is on. The role granted to a member as soon as they link an identity. Use this to gate access to the rest of your server (channels visible to @Verified only).

Create new or pick existing.

Only shown when the verification gate is on. The role assigned to new members until they link. Useful for restricting their view to a single landing channel.

Optional — many servers gate by lack of @Verified instead and skip this.

Toggle. Lets community members view their own linked IDs, strikes, cases, and appeals from a dedicated page. No staff permissions needed.

Off by default; enable if you want to reduce support workload. See Member Portal.

The final screen summarizes every choice in a checklist and runs the actual apply. This is where Arkanis:

• Creates any Create new channels and roles, with the right permission overwrites.
• Builds the Support Inbox category if Cases was enabled.
• Writes the log channel, staff role, and auto-grant choice to server settings.
• Stores identity provider config, verification settings, and the Member Portal toggle.
• Writes the enforcement strike preset and rules preset.
• Enables the features you selected.
• Optionally posts a starter case panel in your panel channel.
• Marks setup as complete, unlocking all dashboard panels.

Apply typically takes 5–15 seconds. If any step fails (e.g. bot lacks permissions), the wizard shows a clear error and highlights which item blocked it — the rest still applies. Fix the blocker and re-run Apply.

The wizard redirects to a completion screen with:

• A “What to try next” card with quick links to test the features you enabled
• A starter case panel checkbox (creates a Simple Support panel in your cases channel)
• Links to configure staff roles and permissions in depth
• An Open Dashboard CTA to jump in with all panels now unlocked

From there, see the Dashboard Overview for a full tour.

You can re-run the wizard anytime. It pre-fills every field with your current settings, so you're making changes rather than starting from scratch:

• From the dashboard — Settings panel → Run Setup Wizard
• Directly — navigate to /dashboard/{guildId}/setup