A well-behaved bot

A channel message is a flood packet: every repeater that hears it relays it, whether it can read the channel or not. Each reply your bot sends on a channel costs airtime to the whole mesh, and Public is the one channel everybody listens to. meshcore.js enforces five rules so a bot cannot spam by accident.

The five rules

1. A bot never speaks first on Public, and only answers the commands you explicitly allowed there, one by one, with setScope('public'). channel.send() and message.reply() on Public reject with PublicChannelError.
2. On a channel, the bot only speaks to answer a command it ran. Unknown command, cooldown, missing permission, bad argument: silent (you still get commandDenied). In DM, refusals are answered as before.
3. At most 10 messages per 5 minutes on one channel. Beyond that channel.send() / ctx.reply() reject with RateLimitError — nothing is queued. DMs are not limited: they are routed, acknowledged and already bounded.
4. One flood advert per 30 minutes (client.radio.sendSelfAdvert(true)). Zero-hop adverts are free.
5. You can bound how far your bot answers: new Client({ maxHops: 2 }) ignores commands and refuses message.reply() beyond two hops (Message.hopCount, Message.tooFar).

These limits stop accidental spam (a runaway job, refusals in a loop, restarts) and remove every easy path. They do not stop a determined actor: the code is open and a raw frame can be hand-built. Nothing in the API justifies going around them — if you need a Companion command the library does not wrap, use client.radio.request(), never write to client.transport yourself.

Answer on Public, deliberately

import { CommandBuilder } from '@meshcorejs/client';

export default new CommandBuilder()
  .setName('info')
  .setDescription('What this bot does')
  .setScope('public') // Public only; add 'dm', 'channel' for more
  .setHandler((ctx) => ctx.reply('WeatherBot · DM me /help'));

@Bot alone on Public lists only the commands that allow 'public'; with none, the bot stays silent.

Prefer DMs for personal answers

A DM to a known contact is routed, not flooded. When the answer only concerns the author, use ctx.replyDM() (the author must be a contact) and keep the channel reply to one short line — or none.

Live on a regional channel

Hashtag channels derive their key from their name: anyone who knows #fr-occ can join. Put your bot's commands on the channel of the people it serves rather than on Public. That chooses who reads the bot; the rules above bound what it transmits.

What you get when a limit hits

A command handler that lets RateLimitError escape does not get the usual internalError reply (it would be refused too): the error is logged and commandError is emitted.

Go further

• Restrict who can run a command for scopes and permissions.
• Post on a channel for the send budgets and the per-channel limit.
• Options and login for maxHops and the login flood advert.