---
title: Bot Management
summary: null
url: >-
  https://www.fastly.com/documentation/reference/changes/2026/09/added-bot-management-api
---

The new [Bot Management API](https://www.fastly.com/documentation/reference/api/bot-management/) lets you configure ContentGuard, which decides how Fastly responds to bot traffic. It is separate from the bot detection and rule features of the [Next-Gen WAF API](https://www.fastly.com/documentation/reference/api/ngwaf/).

- [Set an action for a category of bots](https://www.fastly.com/documentation/reference/api/bot-management/#bot-management-update-category), such as AI crawlers, search engines, or headless browsers. Any bot Fastly later adds to that category picks up the same action automatically.
- [Override the action for an individual bot](https://www.fastly.com/documentation/reference/api/bot-management/#bot-management-update-bot) when you want to treat one differently from the rest of its category. You can set the action back to `inherit` to return it to the category default.
- [Update a workspace](https://www.fastly.com/documentation/reference/api/bot-management/#bot-management-update-workspace) to switch between the `off`, `log`, and `block` protection modes.
- [List all bots in a workspace](https://www.fastly.com/documentation/reference/api/bot-management/#bot-management-list-bots) across every category in a single request. Each bot reports its `category_id`, so you can build a complete bot-to-category map in one pass.

Settings and policy live in a workspace. Use the `service_id` filter on [list workspaces](https://www.fastly.com/documentation/reference/api/bot-management/#bot-management-list-workspaces) to find the workspace serving a given service.