Manage & configure your bot

Once you've connected a bot and added a channel, the Channels page in your dashboard is where you manage it. This page explains every control you'll see, in plain language, so you know exactly what each one does before you touch it.

Before you start

This page covers managing a bot you've already connected. If you haven't connected one yet — created the bot on Discord or Telegram and pasted its token into Raileon — start with Setting up a bot, which walks you through creating the bot, adding it to your server or chats, and connecting it. Then come back here to manage it.

Where to find these controls

If you haven't connected a bot yet, the Connected channels section shows "No channels connected yet." Head to Setting up a bot first, then come back here.

What a channel binding is

When you add a channel on the Channels page, Raileon creates a binding. A binding is simply the link between your bot and one specific channel — it tells Raileon "this bot should work in this channel, in this way."

Each row in the Connected channels section is one binding. A row shows you, at a glance:

• The platform and channel — for example, "Discord · 123456789" or "Telegram · 987654321". The number is the channel's own ID on that platform.
• The audience and template — for example, "Staff · operations". This tells you who the channel is for and which agent setup is running there.
• A status badge — either ACTIVE (shown in green) or PAUSED (shown in grey), so you can see at a glance whether the bot is working in that channel.
• A button — Pause if the channel is active, or Resume if it's paused.

You create one binding per channel. If you want your bot in three channels, you'll add it three times and see three rows here. You can't add the same channel twice — if a channel is already connected, it shows as Added instead of offering an Add button.

The audience setting: staff vs. customer

When you add a channel, you choose its audience from a small dropdown next to the channel name. The audience tells the agent who is on the other end so it can behave appropriately. There are two options:

• Staff — the default, and the option we recommend for now. Choose this for private team channels. Staff channels are for your own people: the agent is set up to help your team get work done.
• Customer (coming soon) — this option is shown in the dropdown and you can select it, but customer-facing channels aren't fully ready yet, so it's marked "coming soon." A customer channel will reply to messages, but the extra controls that make a public channel safe — and the ability for the agent to post on its own — aren't switched on for customer audiences in this early version. Until customer mode is finished, we recommend choosing Staff for every channel.

The audience for each channel is set when you add it and is shown in the channel's row in Connected channels — a staff channel reads, for example, "Staff · operations," and a customer channel reads "Customer-facing · operations."

Agent actions, and why they're off by default

Beyond simply answering messages, your agent can also be allowed to take actions — for example, posting updates into a channel on its own rather than only replying when spoken to.

For your safety, agent actions are switched off by default on every new channel. A brand-new channel will answer messages, but it will not act on its own until actions are explicitly turned on. This is deliberate: it means a freshly connected bot can't take any independent action you didn't ask for. Actions are also limited to staff channels — the agent is never allowed to post on its own into a customer-facing space.

The monthly spend budget

Each channel can have a monthly spend budget — a cap on how much the agent is allowed to spend handling messages in that channel during a calendar month.

The most important thing to understand is what happens when a channel reaches its cap:

• When a channel hits its monthly budget, Raileon pauses that channel automatically. This is a safety measure — it stops the agent there so you're never surprised by runaway spending.
• A paused-on-budget channel stays paused until either the new month begins (which resets the budget) or you manually resume it (see below).
• Pausing on budget affects only that one channel. Your other channels keep working normally.

Pausing and resuming a channel

Pausing is the quickest way to stop your bot working in a channel without disconnecting it. The binding stays in place; the agent just stops replying there until you switch it back on.

To pause a channel:

To resume a channel:

You can pause and resume each channel independently. Pausing one channel never affects the others, and it never disconnects your bot.

Removing a bot

You may want to fully remove a bot — for example, if you connected the wrong one or no longer want it in a channel at all.

In the meantime, pausing a channel is enough to stop your bot working there straight away. If you also want the bot to leave entirely, you can remove it from your Discord server or revoke its token with Telegram's BotFather — but pausing in Raileon is all that's needed to stop the agent replying.

A quick recap

• A binding is the link between your bot and one channel — one row per channel in Connected channels.
• Audience is set per channel. Staff is the working option and the default; Customer is selectable but still a preview, so choose Staff for now.
• Agent actions are off by default on every new channel, so nothing acts on its own until you ask us to enable it (staff channels only).
• A monthly spend budget caps a channel's spending; hitting the cap pauses that channel until the next month or a manual resume.
• Pause and Resume let you switch the bot off and on in a channel with one click, without disconnecting it.
• To remove a bot or binding for now, pause the channel and contact the Raileon team.

Need a hand?

If anything on the Channels page isn't behaving as you expect, reach the Raileon team and we'll sort it out with you.