Moderaty

Never read another hate comment. Moderaty is an open-source YouTube comment protection platform for creators. It applies the creator's rules first, uses AI as a second opinion, and sends uncertain decisions to a human review queue.

What it does

• Connects YouTube channels through Google OAuth.
• Matches top-level comments against keyword, regex, and blocked-user rules.
• Applies hold, reject, delete, or ban actions to matching comments.
• Uses OpenAI moderation and an optional per-channel tone pass for comments that rules do not decide.
• Routes AI failures and borderline scores to a human review queue instead of silently approving or rejecting them.
• Records decisions in an audit log and supports DRY_RUN=true previews.

Each scheduled run is bounded and checkpointed. It processes one eligible channel, records enforcement work in the database before writing to YouTube, and reconciles unfinished actions on a later run.

Repository overview

Moderaty is a SvelteKit 2 application using Svelte 5, TypeScript, and the Netlify adapter. Server code calls the Google and OpenAI HTTP APIs directly; there are no auth, Google, or OpenAI SDKs in the dependency tree.

Path	Purpose
src/routes/	Landing page, authenticated app pages, OAuth routes, and cron API
src/lib/	Shared Svelte components, landing-page content, and server modules
src/lib/server/	Sessions, OAuth, encryption, rules, moderation, pipeline, and database access
drizzle/	Database migrations for libSQL/SQLite and Turso
netlify/functions/cron.mjs	Scheduled Netlify function that invokes the cron endpoint
scripts/	Local demo-data seeding and live tone calibration tools
docs/	Manual end-to-end verification notes
DEPLOY.md	Netlify, Turso, Google OAuth, and cron deployment instructions
EXECUTION_PLAN_YouTube_Comment_Moderator.md	Implementation plan and system invariants

The app uses local SQLite through file:local.db during development and Turso in production. Sessions are stored in the database, and YouTube refresh tokens are encrypted before storage. The application is multi-user: authenticated queries and mutations are scoped to the signed-in user's channels.

Local development

Prerequisites

• Node.js 24+
• npm 11+
• Google Cloud OAuth credentials for sign-in and YouTube channel access
• An OpenAI API key for live moderation runs

Setup

git clone https://github.com/Bonobo791/Moderaty.git
cd Moderaty
npm ci
cp .env.example .env

Fill in .env with the required values. For a local database, keep TURSO_DATABASE_URL=file:local.db and start with DRY_RUN=true. Apply the migrations before starting the app:

set -a
source .env
set +a
npm run db:migrate
npm run dev

Open http://localhost:5173. Google OAuth redirect URIs and production setup are documented in DEPLOY.md; the manual credential and smoke-test checklist is in docs/e2e-verification.md.

To populate the local app with a safe demo channel and sample queue data:

node --env-file=.env scripts/seed-dev.mjs
node --env-file=.env scripts/seed-dev.mjs --reset

The seed script refuses non-local database URLs.

Configuration

Copy .env.example and provide these values as appropriate:

Variable	Purpose
GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID, GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRET	Google OAuth client credentials
APP_URL	Canonical app URL used for OAuth redirects
TURSO_DATABASE_URL, TURSO_AUTH_TOKEN	Local SQLite or production Turso connection
OPENAI_API_KEY	AI moderation and tone scoring
OPENAI_TONE_MODEL	Optional tone model; defaults to gpt-4.1-nano
CRON_SECRET	Secret for scheduled and manual cron requests
ENCRYPTION_KEY	Key used to encrypt stored YouTube refresh tokens
DRY_RUN	Must be true or false; true records audit previews without durable moderation changes

Never commit .env or real credentials. Netlify environment-variable setup is covered by DEPLOY.md.

Useful commands

npm run dev          # Start the development server
npm run check        # Run SvelteKit sync and strict TypeScript diagnostics
npm run test         # Run the Vitest suite
npm run build        # Build the Netlify deployment
npm run preview      # Serve the production build locally
npm run db:migrate   # Apply Drizzle migrations

The test suite includes route, OAuth, session, database, moderation, pipeline, and UI-state tests. The tone evaluator is a separate live API check:

node scripts/tone-eval.mjs

Accounts and hosting

Users sign in with Google identity (openid email profile) and then grant a separate youtube.force-ssl consent to connect a channel. Self-hosted instances use the same code path and bring their own Google, OpenAI, and Turso credentials. Moderaty is designed for Netlify Functions with Turso as the production database; see DEPLOY.md for the scheduled function and post-deployment verification.

License

Moderaty is source-available under a dual-license model:

• PolyForm Shield 1.0.0: LICENSE — free to use, self-host, modify, and distribute, including for commercial purposes, provided that you do not use Moderaty to provide a product or service that competes with Moderaty or another product or service provided by Advanced Digital Marketing LTDA using Moderaty.
• Commercial license: available for competing hosted services, competing white-label products, competing SaaS offerings, or other uses not permitted by the PolyForm Shield License.

For commercial licensing, contact contact@AdvancedDigitalMarketingLTDA.com.

See COMMERCIAL.md.

Copyright (C) 2026 Advanced Digital Marketing LTDA.