SentinelMod

Inspiration

Reddit communities live and die by their moderators. After researching why subreddits get abandoned, I found that moderator burnout is the #1 cause — yet no tool existed to prevent it. Every moderation tool focused on protecting communities FROM users, but nobody was protecting the humans doing the work. That gap inspired SentinelMod.

What I Learned

Building SentinelMod taught me the full Devvit web framework from scratch, including Hono server routing, trigger systems, form responses, and menu integration. I learned how Reddit's moderation infrastructure works at a deeper level, and how to build tools that feel native to the Reddit experience rather than bolted on.

How I Built It

SentinelMod was built entirely on the Devvit web template using TypeScript and Hono. The app runs silently in the background, using Devvit's trigger system to detect every moderation action automatically. The health scoring algorithm analyzes behavioral patterns like late-night activity and workload volume to calculate burnout risk. The dashboard integrates directly into Reddit's mod menu, requiring zero configuration from the moderator.

Architecture:

• triggers.ts handles real-time mod action detection
• forms.ts delivers the interactive health dashboard
• menu.ts integrates SentinelMod natively into Reddit's UI
• A custom health scoring algorithm calculates burnout risk per mod

Challenges

The biggest challenge was working within Devvit's form system to deliver a rich, informative UI without a traditional frontend. Reddit's API context limitations inside form submissions required creative solutions for data retrieval. Getting the trigger system to reliably capture mod actions across different action types also required careful testing. Despite these challenges, SentinelMod achieves a seamless one-click experience that works immediately after installation.

Built With

• devvit
• node.js
• reddit
• typescript