RedLex

All-in-one mod toolkit: strike ledger, shift notes, transparency log, milestones, weekly digests, and rule explainer DMs — all from Reddit's native menus.

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What is RedLex?

RedLex is an all-in-one moderation toolkit for Reddit communities, built entirely on Devvit. It brings seven mod tools into a single app — all accessible through Reddit's native context menus, with no external UI or webview required.

Inspiration

Moderation is mostly invisible work. Mod teams deal with the same problems every day — tracking repeat rule-breakers, handing off context between shifts, explaining removals to confused users — but Reddit's built-in tools don't cover any of it well. RedLex was built to fill those gaps with tools that feel native to Reddit rather than bolted on.

What it does

⚖️ Strike Ledger

Track rule violations per user with a structured strike system.

  • Add a strike via right-click on any post or comment
  • Username and post URL are auto-prefilled from context
  • Severity levels: warning, minor, major
  • User receives a private message notification on every strike
  • View full strike history per user from the post or subreddit menu

📰 Weekly Community Digest

Weekly roundup of top community content — with optional AI summaries.

  • Two modes: AI (OpenAI GPT-3.5 Turbo) or Template
  • Fetches the week's top posts from the subreddit
  • AI mode calls api.openai.com and generates a natural language summary
  • Template mode builds a smart digest locally — no API key needed
  • Weekly scheduler + manual trigger
  • Setup form to configure your OpenAI API key and preferred mode

📋 Shift Handoff Notes

Leave notes between mod shifts so nothing gets missed.

  • Add a note with a text body and priority (normal / urgent)
  • View all unresolved notes at a glance
  • Resolve notes by ID once handled
  • Notes stored per subreddit

📜 Transparency Log

Automatically log every mod action to a public post in the subreddit.

  • Hooks into the onModAction trigger — no manual logging needed
  • Creates and maintains a single pinned log post
  • Post body is updated live with each new action
  • Action emoji mapping: removelink → 📛, removecomment → 💬, banuser → 🔨, approvelink → ✅

🎉 Community Milestones

Celebrate subscriber milestones automatically.

  • Configure which subscriber counts to celebrate (e.g. 100, 500, 1000)
  • Milestone check runs on every new post submission via onPostSubmit
  • Posts a celebration thread when a milestone is hit
  • Each milestone is only ever celebrated once

📊 Mod Action Digest

A weekly summary of mod team activity, posted automatically.

  • Tracks every mod action with the acting moderator's name via the onModAction trigger
  • Groups actions by moderator and counts each type (removals, bans, approvals)
  • Two modes: AI (OpenAI GPT-3.5 Turbo) for a natural language summary, or Template for a clean markdown table with no API key needed
  • Posts a formatted digest to the subreddit every Monday at 9AM via the scheduler
  • Manual "Generate Digest Now" option for on-demand reports at any time
  • Configure post title, AI mode, and OpenAI API key via the Configure Mod Digest menu item
  • Resets the action log after each digest so each week starts fresh

💬 Rule Explainer

Automatically send a friendly DM to users when their post is removed.

  • Triggers on every removelink mod action via onModAction
  • Matches the removal reason against configurable rule templates using keyword matching
  • Falls back to a default message if no template matches
  • DM explains exactly which rule was broken and how to repost correctly
  • Fully configurable: enable/disable, custom signoff, per-rule templates
  • Add and view rule templates directly from the subreddit menu

How I built it

RedLex is built on Devvit 0.12.22 using the @devvit/web server model with Hono as the backend framework and TypeScript throughout. All persistent state lives in Redis via @devvit/web/server — no external database needed. The entire UI is handled through Devvit's native forms and toasts.

The app hooks into three Devvit triggers:

  • onModAction — powers the transparency log and rule explainer DMs
  • onPostSubmit — powers the milestone checker
  • Scheduled tasks — fire the mod digest and community digest every Monday at 9AM

What I learned

  • How to structure a large Devvit app across multiple route files cleanly
  • How Devvit's form registration system works under the hood
  • The constraints and strengths of building entirely within Reddit's platform
  • How to use OpenAI's API within Devvit's external allowlist restrictions

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