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Turn the service on. On the dashboard, open your server's Services page and switch on the Moderation card. Until it is on, every moderation command answers "Sentinel is not enabled for this server." and the automod does nothing.
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Open Sentinel and pick Setup, the chip under Ops in the service's navigation. Only dashboard managers of the server see it; the page tells anyone else that Manage Server permission is needed. The "What Auto-Setup Does" list on that page is the plan for the run.
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Wait for the Readiness check at the top of the page. It confirms "Bot is in this server", "Can create the log channel (Manage Channels)" and "Can create the Quarantined role (Manage Roles)", then says "Ready to run setup." Grant the bot any permission marked with a cross before you continue, or the run stops at that step.
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Choose a protection level: Relaxed (spam control and known phishing links), Standard (preselected, balanced protection) or Strict. Leave "Enforce rules immediately" unchecked. The rules then start in log-only mode: the bot records what each rule would have done without touching anyone, so you can watch them before they enforce.
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Click Run Auto-Setup and confirm. In order, the wizard: checks what already exists; reuses a category with "mod" in its name or creates a private "Moderation" category; creates #sentinel-logs and makes it the moderation log channel; creates a "Quarantined" role with no permissions and denies it sending messages, reacting and using threads in every text, announcement and forum channel; detects moderator roles (roles named with mod, admin, staff or moderator that hold Kick Members, Ban Members or Manage Messages); saves those settings; creates #message-log and #server-log, points the message log and the server logs at them and turns them on; turns on anti-nuke alerts, escalating timeouts and the message log; installs the rules of your level; and posts a "Sentinel Moderation Active" card in #sentinel-logs.
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Read the Setup Result page. Every step shows done, skipped or an error with its reason. An error is almost always a missing bot permission; fix it and run setup again. Steps that succeeded are not repeated, and channels or roles that already exist are reused.
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Open Settings and check Roles & channels. If the wizard found no moderator roles, add them here: until you do, only Administrators can run the staff commands. Confirm the moderation log channel and the quarantine role. Under Moderator commands, set a default timeout if you want /timeout to work with the duration left empty, and decide whether you want anonymous moderation and the Confirm prompt before destructive actions.
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Try it. Run /warn on a test account with a reason. You should see "Warning issued to @member. Case #1", the test account should receive the warn DM, and a "Warning Issued" card should appear in #sentinel-logs. Run /history on the same account to see the case and the warning count.
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Confirm on the dashboard. The Cases page lists case #1 and the Overview page shows the protection strip with the raid and lockdown controls. After the log-only rules have run for a while, open each rule on the Rules page and untick "Dry Run (log only)" to start enforcing it. The "Dry-run all rules" switch under Settings > Warning points & retention overrides every rule at once, so leave it off.
If the Setup page also shows "Or describe it", you can describe your community and how strict you want moderation, preview the rules drafted for you, and apply them instead of a preset.