v2.5.0 Release Notes

We have updated BotShade to v2.5.0. Centered on the redesign of BotShader AI (screen reading, a three-tier model picker, and command builder integration) and command grouping, this release also brings ShadeBoard, our global server board, a much faster dashboard startup, a batch of iPhone fixes, the general release of Bot status / activity settings, and a fully redesigned log view.

If you notice anything, please let us know via Support.

Table of contents:

• Highlights
• BotShader AI reads the screen you are viewing
• Three tiers of AI models with a thinking-level toggle
• Redesigned command builder sidebar
• Organize commands into groups
• ShadeBoard — our global server board is now live
• Bot status / activity settings — general release
• Toggle reply on or off
• Turn off permission re-checks for public panels
• Redesigned log view
• Dashboard startup is much faster
• A batch of iPhone fixes
• Dashboard-wide polish
• New Bots now start with all features on
• Please consent to the new Terms of Service
• Bug fixes
• Compatibility
• Support & Community

Highlights

• BotShader AI reads your current screen — When you open the AI drawer, BotShader automatically picks up the dashboard page you’re viewing (logs, command editor, Bot settings, etc.) and answers in the context of that page. You can also hand over a page explicitly at any time via the ”+” button and “Add this screen”.
• Three tiers of AI models — Basic, Advanced, and Flagship, so you can pick a model that matches the task. Each supports a thinking-level toggle (quick / deep). Models are also grouped by provider, and the model you’re using is shown at a glance.
• Redesigned command builder sidebar — Consult AI directly in the sidebar while building commands. The sidebar shows your current model, honors your plan (models not unlocked are grayed out), and adds action buttons (new chat, history, delete, etc.).
• Organize commands into groups — Discord slash commands can now be structured as groups / subgroups — for example, /economy shop buy. Related commands can be organized like folders.
• ShadeBoard, our global server board, is now live — List your Discord server on BotShade’s board so people looking for a community can find it. List and update it with the Bot’s /board and /bump commands, and browse it at botshade.com/board.
• Dashboard startup is much faster — We cut the amount loaded on first visit to roughly one fifth, shortening the wait before the screen appears.
• A batch of iPhone fixes — Issues that only occurred on iOS — “the bottom of the screen is cut off”, “tapping an input zooms the page”, “the keyboard hides the buttons” — have been fixed by category.
• Bot status / activity settings — general release — The feature previewed in v2.4.0 is now generally available as a paid-plan feature. Configure the Bot’s online state and one of five activity types (Playing / Watching / Streaming / Listening / Custom) from the dashboard.
• Toggle reply on or off — In the message-send configuration of a custom command, you can now explicitly disable the implicit reply to the invoking message and send as a regular message instead.
• Redesigned log view — Much easier to filter and scan, with a plan-based retention cap for stored logs.

BotShader AI reads the screen you are viewing

When you open the AI drawer on the BotShade dashboard, BotShader now automatically picks up information about the page you are currently viewing. On the log view it reads the log context, on the command builder it reads the structure of the command you are editing, and on the Bot settings view it reads that Bot’s configuration — and uses this as context for its answers.

This lets you ask, for example, “Where’s the issue in the current log?” or “Why doesn’t the message branch after this condition?” — and get an answer without repeating context.

Also, from the ”+” button at the bottom of the AI drawer, you can pick “Add this screen” to hand over the current page at any time. Useful when you want to compare across screens or bring a topic back later.

• Supported screens: Logs, command builder, Bot settings, module list, dashboard top — more to follow.
• Privacy: Page information is only sent to BotShader when you take a send action in the AI drawer. Simply opening the drawer sends nothing.

Three tiers of AI models with a thinking-level toggle

We have organized the previously flat model picker into three tiers — Basic, Advanced, and Flagship — so you can pick based on task and scale. Models are also grouped by provider, and models not unlocked by your plan are shown grayed out.

• Basic — For everyday questions, quick drafts, and summaries. Fast to respond and light on cost.
• Advanced — For medium-complexity discussions, designing conditionals and functions, or improving existing commands.
• Flagship — For the hardest reasoning (multi-command designs, working backwards from an unstructured spec, etc.). Available only if unlocked by your plan.

Each model now also supports a thinking-level toggle (quick / deep). “Deep” takes more time to think and is suited to complex problems. “Quick” gives fast responses when you need them.

The top of the command builder sidebar shows the model you are using, so you can see at a glance which model you’re talking to. Plan-based gating is automatic — models not unlocked by your plan cannot be selected.

We have also reworked the feature that has AI assemble a custom command for you, making results more stable when you ask for something complex.

Redesigned command builder sidebar

We have redesigned the command builder sidebar into a new shape optimized for AI collaboration.

• BotShader AI chat in the sidebar — You can consult AI directly in the sidebar with the structure of your command handed over, and ask questions, receive suggestions, or request rewrites.
• Top of sidebar — Displays the model you are using, your thinking level, and plan status. On narrow widths, the limit display collapses to a compact icon.
• Action buttons — New chat, back to history, delete message, and other operations needed to work with the AI.
• Group-aware command selector — When you reference another command, the selector menu now supports the hierarchical view including the command groups introduced in this release.
• A shared model / thinking-level picker between BotShader (settings) and the command builder (sidebar) — So you get the same experience whichever side you approach from.

Organize commands into groups

Until now, custom commands lived in a flat list. In this release, you can organize them like folders. This fully supports Discord’s standard slash-command structure (groups / subgroups).

For an economy Bot, for example, you can organize commands like this:

• /economy shop buy
• /economy shop sell
• /economy bank deposit
• /economy bank withdraw

Detection of duplicate command names has been improved to look at the group / subgroup hierarchy for correct judgment. Nodes that reference other commands also support the group view.

• Naming rules: Following Discord’s spec, group and subgroup names accept the same alphanumeric characters and underscore as command names.
• Migration: Existing flat commands work as-is. You can move existing commands into a group at any time from the command list in the command builder.

ShadeBoard — our global server board is now live

We have launched ShadeBoard, a global server board where every Discord server running BotShade can appear on a single listing. Listing your server makes it discoverable to people looking for a new community to join.

List and update from Discord commands

• /board register — Register your server on the board
• /board edit — Edit your listing (description, listing languages, and more)
• /board show — Check your current listing
• /bump — Raise your position on the board

The bump cooldown is a fixed 2 hours for every server. Because it directly affects listing order, it is not shortened by plan.

What you can configure from the dashboard

We have added a Board module under the “Community” group of Bot settings. There you can turn the board commands on or off for this Bot, set who may run /board and /bump, and set the defaults used when listing (12 listing languages, embed color).

Note that the listing content itself can only be edited from Discord. The dashboard treats listing data as read-only by design, so use /board edit to change your description and similar fields.

Browsing

The list of registered servers is available to anyone without signing in, at botshade.com/board. It is available in Japanese, English, and Simplified Chinese.

Bot status / activity settings — general release

The Bot status / activity settings previewed in v2.4.0 are now generally available as a paid-plan feature.

• Online state: Online / Idle / Do Not Disturb / Offline (appearance)
• Activity type: Playing / Watching / Streaming / Listening / Custom Status — five types
• Insert variables — Activity text can include things like the Bot’s name, the current time, or variables you created yourself, and updates automatically as their contents change.
• When it applies — When you save in the dashboard, the Bot reloads settings and reflects the change on Discord.

Use this to manage the Bot’s on-Discord presence and activity text, for announcement or presentation purposes.

Toggle reply on or off

We have added a “reply enabled” checkbox to the “send message” node of custom commands.

Previously, messages sent in response to a command invocation were always sent as an implicit reply (with an automatic reply link to the invoking message). This release lets you explicitly disable that behavior.

• Checked (default) — As before, sent as a reply to the invoking message.
• Unchecked — Sent as a regular message, without a reply link.

Use this when broadcasting to the whole channel or when you want to avoid nested reply structures.

Turn off permission re-checks for public panels

We have added an “Apply permission settings to persistent panel buttons” checkbox to the permission settings of custom commands (default: on, which matches the previous behavior).

When a sent message is left as a persistent panel, every press of its buttons or select menus re-runs the command’s permission check against the person who pressed it. That is usually the safe behavior, but if you want a public panel that an admin posts once for the whole server to use — like /rules or /help — it leaves the panel unusable for everyone.

Unchecking this skips the permission re-check on panel interactions, so even if only a few people can run the command itself, everyone can use the panel it produced. The permission check when running the slash command is always enforced, regardless of this checkbox.

• For commands without a persistent panel, the checkbox is disabled and the reason is shown.
• If a permission-restricted command still has this checked, the settings screen shows a note about it.

Redesigned log view

We have significantly reworked the log view on the Bot detail page.

• Better filtering UI — Filtering by level, category, and time range is now faster and more intuitive.
• Improved density — Each log entry is easier to read, and scanning through many entries at once is more effective.
• Plan-based retention — Retention count and duration are now sized to your plan. When the cap is reached, older entries are trimmed.
• Richer information — Logs now carry tags for how fast things ran and for the custom command they relate to, making follow-up investigation easier.

Use this daily to isolate issues or confirm the Bot is behaving as intended.

Dashboard startup is much faster

Following reports that the dashboard took too long before it was usable, we revisited how much is loaded up front. The result is roughly one fifth of what was loaded before, which shortens the wait before the screen appears.

The main contributors:

• We stopped loading what isn’t used — Only what a given screen actually needs is loaded now. This accounts for most of the reduction.
• What isn’t needed right away is deferred — Things that are closed by default, such as the AI drawer and the guided tour, are not loaded until you actually open them. The AI drawer is prepared in the background so opening it for the first time is no slower.
• Fewer startup round trips — Requests that used to wait on each other now run at the same time, reducing the exchanges needed before the screen starts drawing.

The code editor and the emoji picker are also loaded only when they are needed.

A batch of iPhone fixes

We investigated issues occurring on physical iPhones by category and fixed 39 of them. The main ones:

• The bottom of the screen was cut off — Height handling for drawers and modals was switched to a method that follows iOS address-bar resizing. In particular, the log view no longer shows only a single screen’s worth of logs on mobile.
• Tapping an input zoomed the page — On touch devices, input text is now sized so it does not trigger automatic zoom.
• Fields with the cursor in them could not be typed into — iOS does not open the keyboard when the cursor is placed automatically, so we no longer do that on touch devices.
• The keyboard hid buttons at the bottom — Bars fixed to the bottom of the screen are now hidden while the keyboard is open.
• Rows of buttons that could not be pressed — Action buttons that only appeared when the mouse hovered over them are now always visible on touch devices. Landscape iPhones in particular were treated as a desktop when judged by screen width alone, leaving invisible buttons on screen.
• The API request node’s editor could not be operated — On touch devices, the code editor is now replaced with a plain input field so both scrolling and editing work.
• The regex builder could not be closed — Its only dismiss control was hidden when the bottom of the screen was cut off, so we added a close button.
• Tooltip behavior, flicker on module settings, and other touch-specific details were adjusted as well.

Dashboard-wide polish

• Authentication screen — “Signing in” and “Registering” are unified as “Authenticating”, and progress steps now advance one at a time. Sign-in method buttons that were not yet operational have been removed.
• A Bot selector across all your Bots — At the top of the dashboard home, you can now switch between all of your Bots. On Bot pages, the selector continues to switch within the same project.
• Sidebar selectors are easier to click — The project selector previously responded only within a small area around the chevron; the whole row is now clickable and the hit area is larger.
• Menus open and close instantly — The scale animation that ran on every menu open and close has been disabled dashboard-wide, removing the sluggishness when operating menus in sequence.
• The default theme is now Editorial — The initial theme has been switched to Editorial. Other themes remain selectable in settings at any time.
• Module settings text tidied up — A few modules carried long explanations on screen; these are now at the same density as every other module. Details live in the documentation.

New Bots now start with all features on

Until now, newly created Bots started with most feature modules turned off. With this release, 23 feature modules are enabled by default (tickets, welcome messages, verification, backup, economy, minigames, responders, leveling, status, search, auto-chat, auto-role, translation, webhooks, invite tracker, SNS, weather, miq, URL buttons, various game info modules, and more).

Only the AI features remain off by default. Enabling them incurs AI usage charges, so they stay opt-in as before.

Existing Bots’ settings are unchanged. This applies only to newly created Bots.

Please consent to the new Terms of Service

The new Terms of Service and Privacy Policy take effect today, July 27, 2026. Accordingly, a consent screen for the new terms is shown when you access the dashboard, and dashboard features are unavailable until you consent.

For details, see The new Terms of Service and Privacy Policy take effect today.

Bug fixes

Dashboard / command builder

• Fixed false detection of duplicate command names.
• Fixed layout of header action buttons that did not right-align and broke on narrow widths.
• Fixed some panels being left-aligned instead of centered.
• Added a warning display when a “send modal” node is placed twice in a row. By Discord’s spec, a modal can only be used once per command.
• Fixed the persistent-panel permission setting reverting to its default when a command was saved from the command list (enable / disable / move to group / draft save).
• Fixed persistent panels placed inside a function not being detected, which incorrectly disabled the permission checkbox.
• Fixed the sidebar project selector stretching to the full width of the sidebar.

Bot

• Fixed group-style commands remaining on Discord — and remaining runnable — after the feature was turned off in the dashboard. This was not merely a display issue; the commands could actually be executed, so we recommend checking any features you have disabled.
• Fixed the target receiving a “you have been penalized” DM even when kick / ban / timeout did not actually run because the Bot lacked permission. The Bot’s permissions are now checked before execution, and the error is shown only to the person who ran the command.
• Fixed /purge having no error handling, which returned nothing to the invoker when permissions were insufficient.
• Failure messages for moderation commands are now visible only to the person who ran them. Success messages remain public as before.
• Fixed failures caused by something other than missing permissions being incorrectly reported as a permission problem.

Other

• Economy module — Fixed a regression where the finance subgroup was always denied by permission checks.
• Authentication — Cleaned up post-login redirects that, under certain conditions, went to an unintended screen.
• Date and time display — Fixed timestamps not carrying timezone information, which could shift displayed times depending on the environment.

Compatibility

• Existing custom commands continue to work as-is. Adopting groups is optional and can be done at any time.
• Behavior of Bot environment variables and the “API request” node is unchanged.
• Persistent-panel permission re-checks are on by default (the previous behavior). Commands that do not set this explicitly behave exactly as before.
• Feature modules being on by default applies only to newly created Bots. Existing Bots’ settings are unchanged.
• Listing on ShadeBoard is optional. The Board module is off by default, so /board and /bump are not added unless you enable it.
• With the log view redesign, some fields recorded prior to v2.4 may display differently in the new format. No content is lost.
• The screen-reading feature of BotShader AI activates when you take a send action in the AI drawer. Merely opening the drawer sends nothing.
• The dashboard’s default theme changes to Editorial, but if you have already chosen a theme, your choice is preserved.

Support & Community

For any questions, unexpected behavior, or requests, please reach out via one of the following:

• Support — In-dashboard support screen, or the contact form
• BotShade Official Discord — Support channel

Thank you for your continued use of BotShade.