Discourse Homepage Redirect Plugin

Make a different homepage for logged-in members without disturbing guests.

• What it does
  When a user is authenticated and visits any of the forum “home” paths (/ or /latest), the plugin transparently redirects them to an admin-chosen URL (for example your AI chat page at /discourse-ai/ai-bot/conversations).
  Anonymous visitors still see the normal Discourse homepage.

• Why you might need it

  • Send members straight to a chat experience, a knowledge-base topic list, or a custom dashboard.
  • Keep SEO and landing-page behavior unchanged for logged-out readers.
  • Avoid fragile client-side hacks or theme-component work-arounds; this runs server-side.

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Requirements

• Discourse 3.1.0 or newer (tests-passed, beta, or stable).
• Works on the official Docker install or any supported production image.

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Installation

1. Add the plugin to your container definition (containers/app.yml):

   hooks:
     after_code:
       - exec:
           cd: $home/plugins
           cmd:
             - git clone https://github.com/BrianCraword/discourse-homepage-redirect.git

Rebuild the container:

bash Copy Edit cd /var/discourse ./launcher rebuild app After the site boots, visit Admin → Settings → Plugins and search for “homepage redirect”.

Configuration Setting Purpose Default homepage_redirect_enabled Master on/off toggle true homepage_redirect_destination_path URL to send logged-in users to  ⇢ must be an internal path such as /my, /categories, /discourse-ai/ai-bot/conversations /discourse-ai/ai-bot/conversations

Changes take effect immediately—no additional rebuild required.

Optional extras (you can uncomment them in config/settings.yml) Setting Example value Effect homepage_redirect_groups staff, ai_premium Only members of these groups are redirected homepage_redirect_extra_paths /categories,/top Treat these routes as “home” too homepage_redirect_first_login_only true Redirect once after account is created, not forever homepage_redirect_allow_param true Add ?noredirect=1 to a URL to bypass redirection (useful for support)

How it works During each request the plugin inserts a before_action in ApplicationController:

ruby Copy Edit if current_user && ["/", "/latest"].include?(request.path) redirect_to SiteSetting.homepage_redirect_destination_path end Anonymous traffic is ignored, ensuring bots and new visitors keep the default experience.

Upgrading git pull in the plugin folder (or let your container clone a newer commit) and rebuild the app as usual.

Removing the plugin Comment out or delete the git clone line in app.yml.

./launcher rebuild app – Discourse will boot without the plugin.

MIT – free to use, modify, and distribute.

Happy redirecting!