# Shadow mode

Shadow mode is Freeside's default - and during the alpha, its only - mode.
The bot observes, evaluates, and reports. It never acts.

## What runs in shadow mode

Every 6 hours (and on demand), Freeside:

1. **Snapshots** your Discord members and their roles - a timestamped
   observation, not a live judgment.
2. **Evaluates** every published cohort against members' linked wallets,
   reading balances straight from the chain at a pinned block.
3. **Compares** the two, member by member: agreement, or a flagged
   discrepancy with the evidence attached.
4. **Reports** - a shareable, exportable artifact your whole team can read.

Nothing in that loop writes to Discord or Telegram. Roles, permissions, and
memberships are inputs, never outputs.

## Why shadow first

Trust is earned with receipts. Weeks of "Freeside flagged this, and Freeside
was right" - adjudicated by you, on your own data - is what makes the
eventual switch to active enforcement a decision instead of a leap. Until
then, a tool that provably cannot touch your server is a tool you can install
beside anything.

## Shadow vs active

Active mode (role sync: Freeside grants and revokes the roles your cohorts
define) exists behind a mode switch and is deliberately off during the alpha.
Graduating a community is an explicit operator act, never a default.