Operator & Group Admin Guide

This page is for operators, group owners, and community / support leads: you keep the bot working well in your groups, but you don't write TypeScript. Everything you need lives in the browser-based Console and one configuration file.

Is this page for you?

• Yes if you want welcomes, check-ins, reminders, feed pushes or content moderation in your groups, want to see what the bot is doing, and want to check problems yourself first.
• No if you want to write new commands, plugins or platform adapters — that's developer work; see the developer quick start.

What Zhin does for you

Outcome	How	Code needed?
One bot managing groups on QQ, WeChat, WeCom, Lark, Discord and more	A developer deploys once; you watch everything under Console → chat accounts	No
Welcome new members, only in selected groups	Group welcome guide	No
Check-in points, message stats, group Q&A / keyword replies	Install the group suite @zhin.js/plugin-group-suite from the feature store	No
Scheduled and event reminders	Reminders without AI	No
Push feed updates into a group	Admin RSS subscriptions	No
Block ads, abuse and other unwanted content	Install @zhin.js/plugin-content-moderation	No
An AI assistant that chats and answers business questions	A developer enables AI; you observe and stop it from Console	Developer for setup
Announcements that only go out after a human approves; risky admin actions gated	See Group ops, announcements and approvals	No

Not sure yet? Open the online demo to see Console (the demo is read-only).

Connect Console

Console is a standalone web app; you don't deploy it:

1. Ask whoever deployed the bot for two things: the API address (e.g. http://127.0.0.1:8068 or your domain) and the token (HTTP_TOKEN in the project's .env).
2. Open console.zhin.dev and enter both.
3. When the accounts (Endpoints) on the home page show online, you're connected.

The token is a password

Never paste it in a group, a screenshot or a link. A Full token can send messages and change config; a Demo token can only read. Colleagues who only watch status need nothing more than a Demo token.

No running bot yet? A developer or ops person does this once: create a project with the quick start or go live with Deployment and Recovery. Day-to-day operations then happen in Console.

Daily operations: find the right page

I want to…	Console page
Check health and which account is offline	Home
Message a group or DM, see recent messages	Chat accounts
Review what the bot said	Chat history
Try replies without a real platform	Try chatting (Sandbox)
See why the AI replied or stayed silent, and which tools it used	Bot status (incl. decision replay)
Make the bot go quiet now	Bot status → control plane (see Emergency stop)
Manage scheduled reminders	Reminders
Install or disable features	Feature store, feature management
Follow a guided setup (e.g. new-member welcome)	Task center → start by use case
Investigate errors	Run log

Details for every page: Console path and Console reference.

Change settings without code

The bot's behavior comes from one file, zhin.config.yml. You don't need to edit it by hand:

• Install features from the feature store; enable or disable them in feature management.
• Change feature settings in each plugin's form — welcome text, check-in points, keyword limits. The form follows the fields the plugin declares and won't save malformed values.
• Secrets such as platform credentials and model keys go in Advanced → environment variables, not in regular config.
• Confirm it applied: a successful save is not the same as live. Follow the page's distinction between "restart required" and "plugin config pending verification", use "read apply evidence" when needed, and treat the runtime capabilities page as the source of truth.

Comfortable with a terminal?

In the bot's project folder, npx zhin setup adds platforms, AI and a database through a wizard; npx zhin doctor diagnoses ports, tokens and config. All fields: Configuration.

Group ops, announcements and approvals

Zhin's rule: every bot decision is traceable, risky actions need approval, and you can stop everything with one switch.

Welcomes and group operations

• Welcome new members: the group suite's welcome is off by default and only sends once you set a welcome text; you can limit it to selected groups. See Welcome only selected groups.
• Check-ins, stats, Q&A: after installing the group suite, members use commands such as checkin and stats; only group owners, admins or trusted users can change keywords and Q&A.
• Content moderation scans inbound and outbound messages and blocks or masks them by severity.

Announcements: draft → approve → send

• The AI may draft an announcement, but it can't submit, approve or send it.
• It goes out only after someone with approval rights (Console permission ops:approve) approves; editing the text after approval blocks the send.
• Pending drafts expire after 24 hours; failed sends are never retried silently — Console shows why, and a resend needs a fresh approval.

Approving risky actions

For risky actions such as kicking a member, messaging another group or changing config, the bot only creates an approval card for an authorized person to approve or deny. The same action in the same group has a cooldown, so repeated clicks produce one card. In groups you can choose approval scopes like "this time only / this conversation / always"; see AI approvals.

Emergency stop

The control plane under Bot status has four switches, per bot or per group, kept across restarts:

Switch	Effect
Emergency stop (emergency_stop)	No model calls, no outbound messages (including scheduled ones)
Muted (muted)	The bot doesn't speak
Read-only (read_only)	No write actions
Mention only (mention_only)	Replies only when @-mentioned or in DMs

The AI has no way to turn these switches off. Every block and change is recorded in decision replay, so you can see who changed what and when.

Current status

Announcements, conversation welcomes, conversation schedules and the control plane are provided by the bot (Host); some matching Console pages are still rolling out, and older Console versions may not show them. If you can't find one, update Console or ask a developer. Rule-based automatic muting ("dynamic group rules") is still planned (#1050); today all admin actions need human approval.

Check problems yourself first

1. Home: is the bot connected and are accounts online?
2. Chat accounts: did the member's message reach the bot? Open that message's "Diagnostics".
3. Runtime capabilities: is the relevant feature loaded?
4. Bot status: how far did the AI get, and why didn't it reply?

More in Find where a message stopped and the Troubleshooting center.

When to call a developer

Situation	Why
First deployment, moving servers, major upgrades	Needs the command line and server access; see Deployment and Recovery and Compatibility and Migration
A new command or feature no existing plugin provides	Needs a plugin; see First plugin
A platform with no adapter yet	Needs an adapter; see Adapter authoring
Letting the AI call your business systems	Needs AI tools; see Agent tools
Console can't connect, CORS errors, reverse proxy issues	Needs server config; see Deployment and Recovery
Errors in the run log you can't interpret	Send the error and time to a developer; see the Troubleshooting center

When you reach out, include: which group, when, what you expected, what actually happened, and a screenshot of Bot status or the run log (hide the token).

Further reading

• What is Zhin.js: a 5-minute overview
• Console path: every Console page in detail
• Choose by outcome: find a solution by the result you want
• Multi-platform community bot: a real example