Chatbots & IRC Guide

Introduction

Twitch offers an IRC interface to our chat functionality. This allows you to, for instance:

Develop one or more bots for your channel.
Connect to a channel’s chat with an IRC client instead of using the Web interface. Some developers prefer IRC because it fits their existing workflow, for example when they already have several non-Twitch IRC channels. Other developers prefer IRC because it is lighter weight and can thus be used on machines that are less powerful than the web interface.

While our IRC server generally follows RFC1459, there are several cases where it behaves slightly differently than other IRC servers. As described in this document, there are many Twitch-specific IRC capabilities. The differences are necessary to accommodate:

The massive scale at which our chat servers operate.
Complex Twitch-specific features that we provide to viewers, broadcasters, and developers.

Syntax Notes

All references to <channel> and <user> are references to channel and user logins and not IDs. Always enter the channel login (<channel>) in lowercase. The examples in the following table use these syntax conventions:

Lines prefixed with:	Are sent from:	To:
<	client	server
>	server	connecting client

Connecting to Twitch IRC

To connect:

	WebSocket Clients	IRC Clients
SSL	wss://irc-ws.chat.twitch.tv:443	irc://irc.chat.twitch.tv:6697
Otherwise	ws://irc-ws.chat.twitch.tv:80	irc://irc.chat.twitch.tv:6667

To authenticate, your password (pass) should be an OAuth token authorized through our API and should use both the chat:read scope (to read messages) and the chat:edit scope (to send messages).

The token must have the prefix oauth:. For example, if your token is abcd, send oauth:abcd.
To quickly get a token for your account, use this Twitch Chat OAuth Password Generator.

Your nickname (nick) must be your Twitch username (login name) in lowercase.

A successful connection session looks like the following example:

< PASS oauth:<Twitch OAuth token>
< NICK <user>
> :tmi.twitch.tv 001 <user> :Welcome, GLHF!
> :tmi.twitch.tv 002 <user> :Your host is tmi.twitch.tv
> :tmi.twitch.tv 003 <user> :This server is rather new
> :tmi.twitch.tv 004 <user> :-
> :tmi.twitch.tv 375 <user> :-
> :tmi.twitch.tv 372 <user> :You are in a maze of twisty passages.
> :tmi.twitch.tv 376 <user> :>

About once every five minutes, the server will send you a PING :tmi.twitch.tv. To ensure that your connection to the server is not prematurely terminated, reply with PONG :tmi.twitch.tv.

If your connection fails for any reason, you will be disconnected from the server. Common reasons for failed connections are:

Connecting on the wrong port
Connecting to the wrong server
Using an incorrect user login or password

Re-Connecting to Twitch IRC

To re-connect to Twitch, follow the same process. Best practice suggests trying again with exponential backoff (immediate, 1s, 2s, 4s, 8s).

Verified Bots

As the popularity of a chatbot grows, there is a possibility that it may approach or exceed the typical rate limits provided for a Twitch account. Chatbots that enhance the Twitch user experience and have reached these limits may apply for the verified bot status. This status provides elevated rate limits should a request be approved. Verified status is granted rarely.

Verified bots:

Have higher chat limits than regular Twitch accounts.
Have higher authentication and join limits than regular Twitch accounts.
Do not have higher limits for sending whispers than regular Twitch accounts (i.e. Twitch private messages).
Are not exempt from AutoMod mode. AutoMod analyzes chat messages and flags potentially risky messages for a channel moderator, who can then allow or deny them to appear in chat.

Requesting Verified Bot Status

If a chatbot has reached the rate limits for messages, authentications, or joins; a developer may request the verified bot status. To make this request, fill out the IRC Command and Message Rate form. Once a request has been reviewed, developers can expect a response via email.

Rate Limits

There are limits to the number of IRC commands or messages a developer can send to the server, the number of authentication and joins that can be attempted, and the number of Whispers (i.e. private messages) that can be sent.

Command and message rate limits

If command and message rate limits are exceeded, an application cannot send chat messages or commands for 30 minutes.

Limit	Applies to
20 per 30 seconds	Users sending commands or messages to channels in which they are not the broadcaster and do not have Moderator status
100 per 30 seconds	Users sending commands or messages to channels in which they are the broadcaster or have Moderator status
7500 per 30 seconds site-wide	Verified bots. The channel limits above also apply. In other words, one of the two limits above will also be applied depending on whether the verified bot is the broadcaster or has Moderator status.

Authentication and join rate limits

Limit	Applies to
20 authenticate attempts per 10 seconds per user	Regular Twitch account
20 join attempts per 10 seconds per user	Regular Twitch account
200 authenticate attempts per 10 seconds per user	Verified bot
2000 join attempts per 10 seconds per user	Verified bot

Whispers rate limits

If the Whisper rate limits are exceeded, an application cannot send Whispers for 24 hours.

Limit	Applies to
3 per second, up to 100 per minute, for 40 accounts per day	All Twitch accounts

Invalid IRC Commands

If you send an invalid command, you will get a 421 message back:

< WHO #<channel>
> :tmi.twitch.tv 421 <user> WHO :Unknown command

Generic IRC Commands

The Twitch API does not support WHO, part of the IRC specification. Please note that the channel login must be in lowercase, per the Syntax Notes.

Capability	Description
`JOIN`	Join a channel.
`PART`	Leave a channel.
`PRIVMSG`	Send a message to a channel.

JOIN

Join a channel.

< JOIN #<channel>
> :<user>!<user>@<user>.tmi.twitch.tv JOIN #<channel>
> :<user>.tmi.twitch.tv 353 <user> = #<channel> :<user>
> :<user>.tmi.twitch.tv 366 <user> #<channel> :End of /NAMES list

To receive commands related to the users in the channel (JOIN, MODE, NAMES, and PART) after a successful JOIN, you must request the Twitch-specific Membership capability.

If you try to join a suspended or deleted channel, you will get a msg_channel_suspended NOTICE. If you try to join a nonexistent channel, the JOIN is quietly dropped.

If you try to join channels in excess of your rate limit, the JOIN is first quietly dropped. If your rate is greatly exceeded, the connection will be terminated.

PART

Leave a channel.

< PART #<channel>
> :<user>!<user>@<user>.tmi.twitch.tv PART #<channel>

PRIVMSG

Send a message to a channel.

< PRIVMSG #<channel> :This is a sample message
> :<user>!<user>@<user>.tmi.twitch.tv PRIVMSG #<channel> :This is a sample message

Scopes for IRC Commands

Twitch slash commands are sent via PRIVMSG. The following table lists these commands and required scopes.

Command	Required Scope
`/ban`, `/unban`	`channel:moderate`
`/clear`	`channel:moderate`
`/color`	`chat:edit`
`/commercial`	`channel_commercial`
`/delete`	`channel:moderate`
`/disconnect`	`chat:edit`
`/emoteonly`, `/emoteonlyoff`	`channel:moderate`
`/followers`, `/followersoff`	`channel:moderate`
`/help`	`chat:edit`
`/host`, `/unhost`	`channel_editor`
`/marker`	`channel_editor`
`/me`	`chat:edit`
`/mod`, `/unmod`	`channel:moderate`
`/mods`	`chat:edit`
`/r9kbeta`, `/r9kbetaoff`	`channel:moderate`
`/raid`, `/unraid`	`channel_editor`
`/slow`, `/slowoff`	`channel:moderate`
`/subscribers`, `/subscribersoff`	`channel:moderate`
`/timeout`, `/untimeout`	`channel:moderate`
`/vip`, `/unvip`	`channel:moderate`
`/vips`	`chat:edit`
`/w`	`whispers:edit`

Twitch IRC Capabilities

Using IRC v3 capability registration, you can register for Twitch-specific capabilities, to access Twitch-specific commands, data, etc.

Due to caching, events are not sent to a channel immediately; instead, they are batched and sent every 10 seconds.

All elevated users are given operator privileges. To determine a user’s actual elevation level, request the tags capability and parse the user-type tag.

There are several Twitch-specific capabilities:

Membership: Adds membership state event data. By default, we do not send this data to clients without this capability.
```
< CAP REQ :twitch.tv/membership
> :tmi.twitch.tv CAP * ACK :twitch.tv/membership
```
Tags: Adds IRC V3 message tags to several commands, if enabled with the commands capability.
```
< CAP REQ :twitch.tv/tags
> :tmi.twitch.tv CAP * ACK :twitch.tv/tags
```

Commands: Enables several Twitch-specific commands.

< CAP REQ :twitch.tv/commands
> :tmi.twitch.tv CAP * ACK :twitch.tv/commands

< CAP REQ :twitch.tv/tags twitch.tv/commands