I’ve been a web programmer for quite a while though I’m new to the Twitch API, but it seems to me that there should be a simple way to programmatically determine if a user is broadcasting/streaming or not, without having to register an application and deal with OAUTH, What I’m looking to do on my site, is simply tell visitors whether I’m streaming or not automatically based on a query to Twitch’s system. I’m not looking to integrate chat, embed broadcasts or anything dramatic, just simply check whether I’m streaming live (not hosting). Everything I keep seeing indicates I need to register an application to get a client ID to send in the requests to the API, which is an awful lot of trouble for something so basic.
I’m sure I had to have missed something here. Can anyone point me in the right direction or is this just not possible without the client ID and registered application approach?
Registering an app and adding the client ID into requests just takes a few seconds, and one of the reasons it’s needed is in cases where if for example your site did these requests client side and had a flood of users, or malicious users, or some sort of bug that caused excessive API requests, Twitch can easily see by the client ID on the requests who to contact to resolve the problem.
As tduva mentioned, you don’t even need to touch OAuth unless you want to use API endpoints that require authentication .
You have to have a developer account (with a verified email address) to access the API. It provides us a way to identify requests coming from your account and reach out to you if needed. The other responses are correct that you don’t need an OAuth token. Just the Client-ID.