Extensions Capabilities in Twitch Chat

Today we’re announcing the first of a series of features focused on providing developers with tools for increasing channel interaction, Extensions-in-Chat.

What is Extensions-in-Chat?

The premise behind Extensions-in-Chat is fairly straightforward. By providing Extensions with direct access to Chat, developers can create even more powerful experiences for streamers and viewers to enjoy. Many extensions are already doing this by connecting through IRC. By now leveraging the Send Extension Chat Message API, we’re able to bridge the functionality of an Extension with the visibility of a chat message—and utilize a single set of standardized interfaces. For instance, an Extension can now send an alert to Chat when the streamer achieves a new World of Warcraft all-time high Arena rating without the need to create an IRC bot.

To use Extensions-in-Chat, a developer can utilize the Send Extension Chat Message API, and with a few lines of code, enable their new or existing Extension to communicate with Chat.

Enabling Extensions-in-Chat

We want developers to focus on building great experiences through Extensions—not the technology stack. For this reason, Extensions-in-Chat is an option in the developer’s Extension dashboard that can be enabled with a flag. Once this flag is enabled, minimal coding is needed to start communicating with chat! Similarly, we’re providing streamers with an easy opt-out mechanism so that they can manage the Extensions with access to their Chat.

Getting Started

  • Read the documentation

  • Login to dev.twich.tv

  • Navigate to Extension dashboard

  • Click on Extensions Capabilities nav option

  • Check the Chat Capabilities box

  • Update the Extension description with new features

With this release, developers enable streamers to post messages and notifications in the desktop channel chat so that everyone in the channel can see and interact with content in real time. We are currently working on mobile support for this feature.

For more information on Extensions-in-Chat, check out our blog post.

4 Likes

This is incredible, I was going to release a new version today, but I’ll wait to integrate the Chat, thank you !!!

Any word on the proposed “pinned message” capability from the same RFC?