Chat filters and automatic actions

The Chat Filter addon matches incoming text and can hide a message, run commands, or forward a copy to another view. A filter can be useful without running any commands at all.

Create a simple filter

Open Preferences → Addons → Chat Filter and add a filter with a descriptive title. Start with a plain-text match, such as a repetitive status message you want to hide, then limit the scope to a test channel before enabling it elsewhere.

A regular expression gives more control when needed:

^!help

This matches a message that begins with !help. Other examples include ^Apple$ for an exact message, ^([0-9]+)$ for digits only, and apple\.com for a literal dot in a domain name.

Scope and sender rules

Use Filter Scope to choose the channels, queries and message types that the filter should consider. The advanced Sender Match option applies a regular expression to the sender's hostmask, while forwarding can copy matching messages to another view.

A title and notes containing a few matching and nonmatching examples make a complex filter much easier to maintain later.

Automatic commands

Each line in Filter Action can contain a slash command, and the available action tokens provide context about a match. Treat incoming messages as untrusted input, particularly when passing their contents into a command or script.

Test actions on a channel you control, keep the scope narrow, and avoid a response that matches its own trigger or another bot's response. Automatic moderation requires the appropriate network privileges and deserves more care than a first tutorial example.

Advanced reference

The original Chat Filter guide retains the illustrated controls, action-token details and embedded help sections linked from older Textual copies. Its automatic ban-and-kick example is preserved as history rather than recommended as a starting point.