Second Life Bots · · 10 min read
Second Life Greeter Bot: Pick the Right Kind in 2026
A Second Life greeter bot welcomes visitors when they arrive at your store, club or community space. It comes in three kinds: a scripted greeter object you rez on your land, a bot avatar that stands in the room and greets people by name, and a human greeter, the volunteer tradition Second Life started with. Objects are the simplest, bot avatars feel like someone is home, and people are the warmest. Whichever you choose, the wording decides whether visitors like it or mute it.
This page is part of our complete guide to Second Life bots. Here we compare the three kinds of greeter, match them to places, and share the greeting rules we learned running a greeter for other people's stores and venues.
Three kinds of Second Life greeter
Search for "second life greeter" and each result covers one kind: a Marketplace listing, a bot service's docs, or an old wiki page about volunteers.
1. Scripted greeter objects
A scripted greeter is an object you buy and rez. When an avatar comes within range, its LSL script says hello by pop-up, IM or local chat. Some are invisible prims; others are shaped like an avatar standing at the door. The top Marketplace result for "second life greeter bot" is one of those: a mesh greeter figure for clubs, shops, offices and malls that greets avatars within a 20 metre radius and comes in a version that also hands out a landmark. Many can give a landmark or notecard.
What to know before you buy:
- It is a one-off purchase. When we checked the Second Life Marketplace in October 2026, greeter listings ranged from about one US dollar's worth of L$ to about a hundred.
- It needs land. You rez it where you want it to greet, so you need rez rights and the land impact to spare. The avatar-shaped one above is listed at 2 LI.
- It is not an avatar. Visitors know an object said hello. That is fine for a shop entrance and less convincing at a social venue.
2. Bot avatars
A bot avatar is a real Second Life account, logged in and standing at your place, greeting arrivals by name. Visitors see it on the minimap and in the nearby list, and it holds the room while you are away.
The two hosted bot services you will find first both offer greeting:
- SmartBots documents a Greeter that can send a message in local chat and/or IM, along with a group invitation and an inventory offer, and each of those options can be switched on or off separately (per SmartBots' Greeter docs, when we checked in October 2026).
- LifeBots lists a greeter among the features of its hosted bots, and also sells greeting as a group service without a bot. Its focus is roleplay characters and AI conversation.
Both are services you administer from a dashboard. The third shape is a greeter running on your own avatar inside your viewer, which is what we build (details below). Weighing hosted services? Our roundup of SmartBots alternatives covers each one.
3. Human greeters
Before any of this was automated, greeters were people. The Second Life wiki still documents the SL Mentor greeters of 2008: volunteers who stood at InfoHubs and welcome areas as welcomers, nurturers and helpers. Their published best practice was simple: greet the residents you meet, ask if you can help them, and wear your tag so people know who you are.
A person is still the warmest greeter: they read the room and answer anything. The limit is hours, since nobody greets around the clock. Many owners combine the two: people host the busy nights, a bot avatar covers the rest.
Side by side
| Scripted greeter object | Bot avatar (hosted service) | Greeter in your viewer (Thunder Viewer) | Human greeter | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What greets | An object rezzed on your land | A dedicated bot account | Your own avatar | A person |
| How it greets | Pop-up, IM or local chat within a radius | Local chat and/or IM (SmartBots docs) | Local chat by name, optional arrival and departure IMs | Conversation |
| Extras on arrival | Many give a landmark or notecard | Group invite and inventory offer, each switchable (SmartBots docs) | Cooldown per visitor, activity log, FAQ answers | Anything they can help with |
| Setup | Buy it, rez it, set the radius | Subscribe, then configure from a dashboard | Switch it on in the viewer you chat from | Recruit and schedule people |
| Needs | Land and LI to rez it | A bot account flagged as a Scripted Agent | An avatar flagged as a Scripted Agent when unattended | Someone online |
Which kind fits your place
- A small shop with one entrance: a scripted object is often enough. One line, a landmark, done.
- A store with regular customers: a bot avatar, so people are greeted by name and regulars are not welcomed like strangers every visit.
- A club or event venue: a bot avatar for the hours between events and people for the event itself.
- A community or welcome space: human greeters first. A bot can cover the quiet hours.
If visitors ask the same questions every day, an avatar greeter that can answer beats an object that can only talk. Our guide to AI bots for Second Life covers that side.
How Thunder Viewer's greeter works
Thunder Viewer is a browser-based Second Life client, and the greeter runs on the avatar you sign in with. What it does:
- Greets arrivals by name in local chat, with a cooldown (12 hours by default) so regulars walking past the door are not re-greeted on every visit.
- Optional arrival IM from a saved template, for a personal note on top of the room greeting.
- Optional departure IM, sent only after a stay of 3 minutes or more. Someone who teleported in and straight back out did not visit, so they are not thanked for it.
- Placeholders
{name}and{region}in the templates, filled in at send time. - Region broadcast for a new release: a one-off IM to everyone currently in the region, with a confirmation step before anything goes out and live progress while it sends.
- One greeter per account. If you run several avatars, only one of them greets and sends outreach for your whole account, so a visitor never gets the same welcome twice from different avatars.
- A daily message budget of 4,000 automated messages per account, shared by everything the bot sends, inside Linden Lab's 5,000 a day Scripted Agent limit.
- An activity log listing what it sent: greetings, IMs and replies, so you can check the wording against how visitors actually react.
It pairs naturally with Instant FAQ: keyword-matched answers in your own words, so when the visitor you just greeted asks "where is the redelivery terminal?", the answer comes back straight away. To run it while you are away, see how to keep a Second Life avatar online 24/7.
What running a greeter taught us
The hardest part of a greeter is not saying hello. It is not saying hello twice. Presence in Second Life flaps: an avatar at the edge of a region can appear, vanish and reappear several times in a minute. Early on, that made one visitor get the same message three times in two minutes, because each flap triggered a greeting before the first one had been recorded. The fix was to claim the cooldown before sending: the greeter reserves "I am greeting this person" first, and any second trigger finds it already taken. Whatever greeter you choose, ask how it handles a visitor who flickers in and out.
How to write a Second Life greeting nobody mutes
These rules hold for objects, bots and people alike.
Do:
- Use their name. "Welcome, Mira" is a greeting. "Welcome, visitor" is an announcement.
- Give one useful pointer. Where the demos are, where the dance floor is, where to ask for help. One, not five.
- Keep it short. One line in local chat. Anything longer scrolls past the conversation already happening.
- Pick the channel by purpose. Local chat is for the room and makes the place feel alive. IM is for a personal note, and should be rare.
- Thank leavers only after a real visit. A departure message to someone who stayed ten minutes feels attentive. To someone who stayed ten seconds, it feels like tracking.
Don't:
- IM every visitor on every visit. A regular who gets the same IM daily will block your avatar.
- Send walls of text. Rules, links and event schedules belong on a notecard or a sign, not in a greeting.
- Lead with links. Hello first, SLURL or group link second, if at all.
- Greet twice. Use a cooldown, and make sure your tool claims it before sending.
Example greetings:
- Store: "Welcome to Northwind, {name}! New arrivals are on the left wall, demos are by the door. Ask me about redelivery anytime."
- Club: "Hey {name}, welcome to the Lantern! DJ is live at 8 SLT, dance balls are by the bar."
- Community space: "Hi {name}, welcome to {region}. If you are new, the help board by the fountain has everything. Say hi in chat, people here are friendly."
The rules every greeter bot must follow
A greeter object is just a script. A greeter avatar running unattended is a Scripted Agent under Linden Lab policy, and the rules that come with that apply. Our page on the Second Life bot rules covers them in depth; for greeters, four matter most:
- Flag the account. An avatar that greets on its own while nobody is at the keyboard should be a dedicated account flagged as a Scripted Agent on secondlife.com. Keep your main as your main.
- Estates can deny bots. An estate can block flagged bots, and an unflagged bot on such an estate is a violation. Check before you station a greeter on rented land.
- Greet on your own land. Do not park a greeter avatar at public welcome areas or InfoHubs: Linden Lab's policy names scripted agents that regularly get stuck at welcome areas or InfoHubs as a nuisance, and welcoming newcomers there is what the human greeter tradition was for. Read the Linden Lab bot policy once for the full list of what a bot must not do.
- Mind the shared 5,000 limit. Linden Lab allows 5,000 messages per day across every bot one person runs, counting chat, IMs, inventory offers and invites together. A fleet of modest greeters can add up fast.
Running several businesses? Our Second Life business playbook shows where greeting fits with support, outreach and moderation.
FAQ
What is a greeter in Second Life?
A greeter welcomes people when they arrive somewhere in Second Life. Originally greeters were volunteers, such as the SL Mentor greeters at InfoHubs and welcome areas. Today the word also covers scripted greeter objects that say hello within a radius, and bot avatars that greet arrivals by name.
How do I make a greeter bot that gives group invites?
It depends on the kind. A true group invitation has to come from an avatar with the right to invite, which is why hosted bot avatars like SmartBots' greeter can send one alongside the welcome. A scripted object can post a group link in its greeting that visitors click to join. Thunder Viewer handles group invites with its group tools, and its greeter IMs can carry a group link in the template text.
Can a greeter give out a landmark?
Yes. Many scripted greeter objects hand out a landmark or notecard, and SmartBots' greeter can make an inventory offer with its welcome. Any greeting or IM can also include a SLURL, which visitors click to teleport straight back later.
Is a greeter bot allowed?
Yes, if it follows the Scripted Agent rules. Flag the bot account on secondlife.com, keep it on your own land, respect estates that deny bots, and stay under 5,000 messages a day across all your bots. A scripted object on your own parcel is ordinary LSL.
Should a greeter use local chat or IM?
Local chat for the welcome, IM for the exception. A local chat greeting makes the room feel alive and costs the visitor nothing. An IM lands in their inbox, so save it for something personal, like a thank-you after a real visit, and send it rarely.