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TwitchBot

What's Now Playing integrates with Twitch with channel point redemptions and chat. They may be run independently or run both at the same time.

Twitch Chat Support

The chat bot support includes track announcement as well as interactive features.

For example, in chat, if the user types:

!track

What's Now Playing will read a file called twitchbot_track.txt and expand any template values in it. The Twitchbot settings section sets permissions for commands.

Additionally, the Twitchbot can send an announcement template to chat when What's Now Playing detects a song change or when a track Request has been fulfilled.

Twitch Channel Point Redemptions

Currently, channel point redemptions allow for users to request songs, either by artist/title or picking a random song in a 'roulette' mode when that redemption is tied to a supported DJ's software crate/playlist. For more information see Requests.

Authentication

What's Now Playing uses OAuth2 authentication for secure integration with Twitch. For redemptions, you will need to authenticate against your own account. For the chat bot, you can either use your account or create and use another account.

Setup Process

  1. Create Bot Account (Optional but recommended)

  2. Follow the Twitch process for creating a new account.

  3. On the new account, be sure to enable:

    • Multiple logins per email
    • Two-factor authentication (2FA)

Account Settings for bots

  1. Register Application on Twitch

  2. Go to Twitch Developer Console

  3. Click Login in the upper right
  4. Click on "Your Console" in the upper right
  5. Click on "Applications"
  6. Click on "Register Your Application"
  7. Name: Choose a descriptive name (e.g., "YourChannel Now Playing Bot")
  8. OAuth Redirect URLs: Enter both redirect URIs as shown in What's Now Playing's Twitch settings:
    • http://localhost:8899/twitchredirect
    • http://localhost:8899/twitchchatredirect
  9. Category: Chat Bot
  10. Click "Create"
  11. Click on "Manage" and save a copy of the Client ID

  12. Click on "New Secret" and save a copy of the Client Secret

  13. Configure What's Now Playing

What's Now Playing's Twitch auth panel

  1. Open Settings from the What's Now Playing icon
  2. Select "Twitch" from the list of settings available

  3. Fill in the required information:

    • Channel: Your Twitch channel name (where you want to monitor/send messages)
    • Client ID: From your Twitch application
    • Client Secret: From your Twitch application
    • Redirect URI: Will be automatically populated based on your webserver port

  4. Click "Save" to store the configuration

  5. Important: You must save the settings before proceeding to authentication
  6. Click "Authenticate with Twitch" to complete OAuth2 setup
  7. A browser will open - log in and authorize the application
  8. You should see "Authentication Successful" when complete

Additional Setup Considerations

  • Bot Moderator Status: Consider making your bot account a moderator on your channel to avoid rate limits, URL filters, and other restrictions.

  • Browser Authentication: When you click "Authenticate with Twitch", a browser will open asking for permission. Make sure you're logged into the correct Twitch account:

  • For channel point redemptions: Log in as your main streaming account (the channel owner)

  • For chat functionality: Log in as your bot account (if using a separate bot account)

  • Required Permissions: Accept the requested permissions (chat:read and chat:edit) to allow the bot to monitor and send messages.

Twitch Chat Configuration

Twitch Chat Settings

  1. Open Settings from the What's Now Playing icon
  2. Select Twitch Chat from the list of settings available.
  3. Check Enable
  4. To have the bot announce new tracks in chat, select the template.

By default, the bot will respond to user commands in the form of Twitch Replies. If you would prefer the bot just post a message, uncheck the Replies option.

You are now ready to set permissions on user interactive commands.

Setting Permissions

Upon launch, What's Now Playing will create an entry for every twitchbot_*.txt file in the template directory. These entries will all be set to completely disabled. In order to enable them, you will need to check the appropriate field.

Twitchbot template files added while What's Now Playing is running will let anyone use them until the next run. At the next run, it will again change them back to no permissions granted.

Once the permissions are set and Save is clicked, those permissions will be preserved on every restart.

Adding New Commands

Create a new file in What's Now Playing'stemplates directory (Documents/Now Playing/template) called twitchbot_yourcommand.txt where yourcommand is the actual command that will be executed by users that have the appropriate template code inside it. Note that all text will be smashed together as a single line when sent to Twitch, so be mindful of where to put spaces.

Built-in Commands

Post-v3.0.2, the Twitchbot will always respond to the command 'whatsnowplayingversion' . It will report the version that is running.

Troubleshooting

  • To test if the chat bot is working, you should be able to use the '!whatsnowplayingversion' command. What's Now Playing only needs to be running. You do not have to be live streaming to test chat.

  • If the bot never connects, try getting a new OAuth token.

  • Be aware that the bot may have trouble connecting if you restart What's Now Playing too quickly. It should eventually rejoin, but it may take several minutes.

Additional Variables

The TwitchBot adds the following additional values for templating purposes:

Variable Description
cmduser Person, bot, etc that typed the command
cmdtarget[x] The x'th target on the command, starting with 0. For example, if the command was !so modernmeerkat, then {{ cmdtarget[0] }} will have modernmeerkat in it. See below for an example.
startnewmessage Split the text at this location and start a new message to send to chat.

Token Selection

The system automatically uses the most appropriate token for sending messages. If you have both broadcaster and chat bot tokens authenticated, chat messages will be sent from the bot account for cleaner presentation.

Multiple Targets

One of the more advanced capabilities that the TwitchBot supports is a variable number of targets. This feature allows for your users to use one command to perform actions on, for example, multiple users.

A simple example. Given this template file:

@{{ cmduser }} hugs @{{ cmdtarget[0] }}

a user typing:

modernmeerkat: !hug twitch

Would result in:

bot: @modernmeerkat hugs @twitch

But this can be expanded to do multiple users at once:

@{{ cmduser }} sends hugs to

such that:

modernmeerkat: !hug person1 person2 person3

results in:

bot: @modernmeerkat sends hugs to @person1 @person2 @person3

Announcing Websites

You may want to add support for announcing the website data as part of the Twitchbot track announcement. You can pick and choose which websites are printed by taking the following code snippet and modifying as necessary: