Hide Playerbot accounts from search, character pages and guild rosters

Playerbots are ordinary accounts, not game masters, so hideGameMasters does
not touch them. On a realm running mod-playerbots that means the armory is
almost entirely bots: 1,377 characters listed, of which about 1,350 are bots.

Adds two options, hideBotAccounts (default true) and botAccountPattern
(default "RNDBOT%"), applied the same way the game master filter already
works: left join the accounts we do not want, then require the join to have
missed. A realm without bots matches nothing, so the default is harmless.

Applied in the search listing, guild rosters, and the character lookup, so a
bot's page 404s rather than rendering.

The pattern is spliced into join clauses the query builder emits as raw SQL,
so it cannot be a bound parameter. It comes from the operator's own config
rather than from a request, but Utils.quoteSqlString quotes it so a stray
apostrophe cannot produce a broken query.

Verified against the live realm:

  listed before  1377
  listed after     27
  Spinnaker, Kdog  shown
  Rarzosh (bot)    hidden

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01NW2ooBP2KPqQVzdZZDMvZd

config.default.json

@@ -9,6 +9,8 @@
 	},
 	"loadDbcs": true,
 	"hideGameMasters": true,
+	"hideBotAccounts": true,
+	"botAccountPattern": "RNDBOT%",
 	"transmogModule": false,
 	"useZamCdn": false,
 	"realms": [

docker-compose.mythica.yml

@@ -41,6 +41,12 @@ services:
             # --- behaviour -----------------------------------------------------
             ACORE_ARMORY_LOAD_DBCS: ${ARMORY_LOAD_DBCS:-1}
             ACORE_ARMORY_HIDE_GAME_MASTERS: ${ARMORY_HIDE_GMS:-1}
+
+            # Playerbots are ordinary accounts, not game masters, so the GM
+            # filter does not touch them. Without this the armory lists ~1350
+            # bots against ~29 real characters.
+            ACORE_ARMORY_HIDE_BOT_ACCOUNTS: ${ARMORY_HIDE_BOTS:-1}
+            ACORE_ARMORY_BOT_ACCOUNT_PATTERN: ${ARMORY_BOT_PATTERN:-RNDBOT%}
             ACORE_ARMORY_TRANSMOG_MODULE: ${ARMORY_TRANSMOG:-0}
 
             # 0 = serve 3D model assets from the local data directory.

src/armory/Config.ts

@@ -31,6 +31,8 @@ export class Config {
 	public iframeMode: IIframeModeConfig;
 	public loadDbcs: boolean;
 	public hideGameMasters: boolean;
+	public hideBotAccounts: boolean;
+	public botAccountPattern: string;
 	public transmogModule: boolean;
 	public useZamCdn: boolean;
 	public realms: IRealmConfig[];

src/armory/Utils.ts

@@ -60,4 +60,17 @@ export class Utils {
 			background: obj.background.toString().padStart(padLength, "0"),
 		};
 	}
+
+	/**
+	 * Quote a configuration-supplied string for inline use in SQL.
+	 *
+	 * The bot-account filter has to be spliced into join clauses that the query
+	 * builder emits as raw SQL, so it cannot be passed as a bound parameter the
+	 * way a normal value would be. The value comes from the operator's own
+	 * config rather than from a request, but quoting it keeps a stray apostrophe
+	 * from producing a broken or surprising query.
+	 */
+	public static quoteSqlString(value: string): string {
+		return `'${String(value).replace(/\\/g, "\\\\").replace(/'/g, "\\'")}'`;
+	}
 }

src/armory/controllers/CharacterController.ts

@@ -342,6 +342,16 @@ export class CharacterController {
 
 	private async getCharacterData(realm: IRealmConfig, character: string | number): Promise<ICharacterData> {
 		const where = typeof character === "string" ? "LOWER(`characters`.`name`) = LOWER(?)" : "`characters`.`guid` = ?";
+
+		// Bot accounts are hidden the same way game masters are: left join the
+		// rows we do not want, then require the join to have missed. Keeping the
+		// pattern inline rather than bound avoids disturbing the positional
+		// values below.
+		const botJoin = this.armory.config.hideBotAccounts
+			? `LEFT JOIN \`${realm.authDatabase}\`.\`account\` AS \`bot_account\` ON \`bot_account\`.\`id\` = \`characters\`.\`account\` AND \`bot_account\`.\`username\` LIKE ${Utils.quoteSqlString(this.armory.config.botAccountPattern)}`
+			: "";
+		const botWhere = this.armory.config.hideBotAccounts ? "AND `bot_account`.`id` IS NULL" : "";
+
 		const [rows] = await this.armory.getCharactersDb(realm.name).query({
 			sql: `
 				SELECT \`characters\`.\`guid\`, \`characters\`.\`name\`, \`race\`, \`class\`, \`gender\`, \`level\`, \`skin\`, \`face\`, \`hairStyle\`, \`hairColor\`, \`facialStyle\`, \`playerFlags\`, \`online\`, \`guild\`.\`name\` AS \`guild\`
@@ -349,9 +359,11 @@ export class CharacterController {
 				LEFT JOIN \`guild_member\` ON \`guild_member\`.\`guid\` = \`characters\`.\`guid\`
 				LEFT JOIN \`guild\` ON \`guild\`.\`guildid\` = \`guild_member\`.\`guildid\`
 				LEFT JOIN \`${realm.authDatabase}\`.\`account_access\` ON \`account_access\`.\`id\` = \`characters\`.\`account\` AND \`account_access\`.\`RealmID\` IN (-1, ${realm.realmId}) AND \`account_access\`.\`gmlevel\` > 0
+				${botJoin}
 				WHERE
 					${where}
 					AND (\`account_access\`.\`id\` IS NULL OR ? = 0)
+					${botWhere}
 			`,
 			values: [character, this.armory.config.hideGameMasters ? 1 : 0],
 			timeout: this.armory.config.dbQueryTimeout,

src/armory/controllers/GuildController.ts

@@ -93,6 +93,19 @@ export class GuildController {
 			ssp = ssp.where("`account_access`.`id` IS NULL");
 		}
 
+		if (this.armory.config.hideBotAccounts) {
+			ssp.joins.push({
+				table1: "characters",
+				column1: "account",
+				table2: "account",
+				column2: "id",
+				database2: realm.authDatabase,
+				kind: "LEFT",
+				where: `AND \`${realm.authDatabase}\`.\`account\`.\`username\` LIKE ${Utils.quoteSqlString(this.armory.config.botAccountPattern)}`,
+			});
+			ssp = ssp.where(`\`${realm.authDatabase}\`.\`account\`.\`id\` IS NULL`);
+		}
+
 		const result = await ssp.where("`guildid` = ?", guildId).where("`deleteInfos_Account` IS NULL").run(this.armory.config.dbQueryTimeout);
 
 		const ranks = await this.getGuildRanks(realm, guildId);

src/armory/controllers/IndexController.ts

@@ -55,6 +55,19 @@ export class IndexController {
 			ssp = ssp.where("`account_access`.`id` IS NULL");
 		}
 
+		if (this.armory.config.hideBotAccounts) {
+			ssp.joins.push({
+				table1: "characters",
+				column1: "account",
+				table2: "account",
+				column2: "id",
+				database2: realm.authDatabase,
+				kind: "LEFT",
+				where: `AND \`${realm.authDatabase}\`.\`account\`.\`username\` LIKE ${Utils.quoteSqlString(this.armory.config.botAccountPattern)}`,
+			});
+			ssp = ssp.where(`\`${realm.authDatabase}\`.\`account\`.\`id\` IS NULL`);
+		}
+
 		const result = await ssp.where("`deleteInfos_Account` IS NULL").run(this.armory.config.dbQueryTimeout);
 
 		res.json({