Private extensions for own channel?

Is it going to be possible to create extensions for my own channel? I want to make some simple extensions that are specific to my channel without them being publicly available, much like how I have a custom chat bot for my channel. I’m also not interested in monetizing them, so seeing all of the tax requirements in the registration instructions is extremely off-putting.

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I would like to know the point of this as well, I was ready to implement interactivity with my own private custom bot that is locally hosted, and that would push data towards a private extention for me (and perhaps a few other friends that use my bot). So locally hosted bot, which its IP can change any moment (dynamic) to a private extention.

We can have our own private extention be on Local Test or Hosted Test indefinitely for this purpose, give people the extention code that comes with your bot, let them host that themself as well, but the TAX requirements are in the way doing it like that for a non monetizing private extention…

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You can whitelist extensions to specific broadcasters if you don’t want them to be available to the entire user base. There are several channel specific ones that I am aware of.

@Ocgineer - That should be possible but you will probably have to create an externally hosted intermediate web service that the extension (EBS) and the locally hosted bot both connect to for the data exchange.

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Hmm tought about that yes, but I would hope that a locally hosted bot can full fill this EBS just as fine, if it can communicate with the extension through AJAX / PubSub or what ever API calls there are. But as I do not know the exact requirements yet for the EBS I cannot say more about this myself.

But the addition of having to file in two tax forms for a private non-monetizing extention is the biggest block at the moment. Also my ‘dashboard/settings’ doesn’t show any Extensions Developer Onboarding link to click on to get started >.>

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Keep in mind that viewers call the EBS service directly thereby exposing your home IP address.

Also, monetization for extensions is on the roadmap so it makes sense to request the information up front.

Oh thats interesting, and certainly something to take into consideration. As I have not started yet but I have read over the documents a bit so far and was assuming the EBS communicates with the PubSub to broadcast data to the Extension thus hiding the actual IP address.

Looks like it can do either. The extension can call the EBS via AJAX and/or the EBS can publish to PubSub but you might have limited functionality if you only send to PubSub.

Oh don’t get me wrong, I totally understand having that Tax information needed for the future monetization options is a requirement but on the other hand I see this most likely happen for big services that already have a backend available to do so. Not something a home coder has for his own private bot, which is the main point here. Especially when you are not from the US, the US tax forms are like magic for people, I had a hard time understanding my Partner Tax forms but that is beside the point xD

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Another thing to keep in mind is that all communication from the Extension to the “back-end service” has to be over a secure connection (Ajax over HTTPS or WSS). HTTP and non-secure WebSockets wont work / are not allowed.

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we get a bit oot here.

I’m a Web-Dev, but develop for twitch is just a hobby.
I don’t wan’t to take any money for what i develop and i won’t start a bussiness just so i can develop FREE extentions.

So why all the tax data?

Extensions involve uploading Code to Twitch’s Servers.

With tax data they have verified identity which protects both you and Twitch if something goes wrong as part of putting your code on Twitch’s servers.

I would imagine

There are many other options for identity check.
For this one I would need to start a business for a hobby.

Depends what Tax things they give you in your country.

In the UK my Tax ID Number is my National Insurance Number.

So no you shouldn’t have to start a business.

If you pay Income Tax on your Dayjob, or something like National Insurance, you have a Tax ID which you can use for this

If so, sounds like an issue with your local laws. I didn’t need to input any company information as a Finn.

ok , my fault here. missreaded a step and checked a wrong box.
Still not think it’s good to supply the tax data, but it’s working.

I don’t understand the need to get tax information from every single developer, even if they don’t plan to monetize it. I want to mess around and make one for my own channel. I don’t care at all about monetizing it. Why do I need to go through all this process with 2-3 tax forms and entering all my information 5 times just to play around with it?

Let alone the fact that my form has been pending for 48 hours and I’m sitting here waiting to just try it out.

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Because the code you create will be uploaded to Twitch’s servers and if something goes wrong they know how to sue you correctly. Yes thats the worse case scenario.

Twitch/Amazon need a verified identification and the only way to get that is with Tax ID’s

Let alone you are talking about your own channel, you’ll need to do the same forms if you go for/get affilaite/partnership anyway.

Front loading all the forms and blocking developers from even getting started is silly. I’m here 3 day later still waiting for that one tax form that’s stuck in review and I haven’t been able to do anything yet.

It should probably be a tiered system. Right now, there’s 3 different forms you have to fill. One is for identity, the other two for taxes. On the first tier, with no forms, you should still have access to a sandbox where you can develop and test your code, but no one else can use your extension, only you. Next up, once you submit the one identity form, others can use your extension but you can’t make any money. Lastly, once you submit the tax forms, you can also get royalties.

How are they ‘blocking developers’? There are many extensions already, with many more in current development.

You can’t expect Twitch to let you have a sandbox to run code on their platform without taking legal precautions to protect both themselves and their end users. You might not have any intent on doing anything malicious, or have any plans to monetise your extension, but unlike a 3rd party server which integrates with the Twitch API, extensions deliver content through Twitch’s own site and so they have a responsibility to perform certain checks and balances on who is using this.

Maybe they will streamline things in the future once they get an idea of how extensions are being used and where there might be issues. If you want to be on the bleeding edge of new features then you have to accept what goes along with that.