Overview
This page tracks major updates, new features, and changes to Kao. For the latest updates, follow us on Discord.
April 2026
Shared Server Access
Role-based team permissions allow multiple users to manage the same server's emotes. Assign viewer, editor, or admin roles to team members for collaborative emoji management across all dashboard pages.
Import Reliability
- Preprocessing cache eliminates redundant image processing on retries
- Fail-to-queue system automatically re-queues failed imports
- Emoji capacity limits are now enforced before importing begins
- Redis pub/sub delivers real-time queue progress updates
Internationalization
Full multi-language support with community-driven translations. A GitHub App workflow automatically creates PRs for new translations, with webhook-based merge sync and an admin UI for managing translation status.
GDPR Account Deletion
Complete account deletion pipeline with full data export for GDPR compliance, including chargeback defense documentation.
Security & Stability
- Auto-decimate high-frame GIFs instead of failing on import
- Role-based access validation across all dashboard pages
- Selective deployment with cumulative change detection
- Patched vulnerable transitive dependencies
March 2026
Documentation & Policy Updates
- Updated all documentation to reflect current feature set and tech stack
- Migrated from Prisma to Drizzle ORM
February 2026
Emote Creator
Create unique combined emotes by layering transparent overlays on top of base emotes. Design with a live canvas preview, drag-to-position controls, and layer management with scale, rotation, and opacity sliders.
Multiple Bot Management
Register and manage multiple Discord bots under a single account. Each bot can be assigned to different servers with independent settings.
Activity & Operations Log
Track all your import, backup, rotation, and sync operations in a dedicated activity log with detailed status and error reporting.
Enhanced Admin Panel
- Admin-configurable plan limits (bots, servers, imports per day, search rate, collections, backups, rotations, sync groups)
- Per-plan trial days configuration (0-365 days via Stripe native trials)
- Login failure tracking with per-bot resume capability
- Plan display settings (descriptions, feature lists, sort order)
- Coupon and promo banner management
Security Improvements
- Comprehensive security alert system (bot token abuse, session anomalies, IP reputation, login brute force)
- Rate limiting across all API routes
- Timing-safe comparisons for secret validation
- Token invalidation detection with inline update UI
Performance & Reliability
- GIF frame decimation fix for high-frame animated emotes
- Bot manager login failure recovery with permanent token block tracking
- Enhanced permission checking at channel-level (not just guild-level)
- Comprehensive accessibility audit (340+ improvements across 52 files)
Monitoring
- Loki + Promtail log aggregation for detailed bot traffic analysis
- Enhanced Grafana dashboards with bot traffic panels (user agents, IP addresses, request volumes)
Import Improvements
- "All" source filter for cross-provider emote search
- Server name resolution from Discord API in activity logs
- Backup emoji refresh fix for accurate snapshot capture
January 2025
Initial Release
We're excited to announce the initial public release of Kao!
Features:
- Discord OAuth authentication
- Bring Your Own Bot (BYOB) system
- Emote search across 7TV, BetterTTV, and FrankerFaceZ
- Single and bulk emote importing
- Server emoji management (view, rename, delete)
- Bulk emoji deletion
- Custom command prefix
- Onboarding flow for new users
Emote Platforms:
- 7TV support (static and animated)
- BetterTTV support (static and animated)
- FrankerFaceZ support (static only)
Security:
- Encrypted bot token storage
- Secure session management
- Discord OAuth with minimal permissions
Feedback
Have a feature request or found a bug? Let us know!