Announcing the Latest Helix Endpoints and Hype Train API
Today we’re announcing significant updates to the Twitch API. Since the launch of the Helix namespace, we promised to deliver functionality with four tenets in mind – simplicity, consistency, reliability, and transparency. As many of you are aware, providing API functionality in Helix that meets these tenets has taken more time than anticipated. As we move toward one version of the Twitch API, a new set of Helix endpoints are available (as of today) to cover a number of developer needs previously only possible in v5.
These new endpoints are the result of developer feedback via UserVoice and our first recurring developer survey. Thank you for participating; we’ve provided some high level results of the survey below. We believe that these surveys will continue to be a valuable tool for us to understand your needs and explore new features and product ideas.
Survey Results for Early 2020
First off, we would like to give a shoutout to TheAltF4Stream for completing the survey while streaming! If you didn’t get a chance to see the survey questions or want to see a developer answer the questions under pressure, we suggest you check out the highlight.
96 developers completed all required questions of our first recurring developer survey, which was a 72% completion rate. About 80% of developers who participated identified themselves as a “broadcaster tools developer” and 66% of developers who participated identified as an “individual” when asked about company size. This passionate community demographic did not fail to deliver; we received a tremendous amount of feedback related to the API.
In the survey we asked, “How likely are you to recommend developing on Twitch to another developer?” on a scale of 0 to 10 (i.e. “not at all likely” to “extremely likely”). 26% of participants replied with 9 to 10, while 43% of participants replied somewhere between 0 to 6. One of our goals will always be the improvement of these lower scores and in the case of this specific survey, we believe a good number of these scores are the result of being blocked on migrating from v5 to Helix. This conclusion was backed by answers provided via open-ended questions (we read every single answer!) and that 77% of participants stated they could not fully migrate off of v5 because of missing functionality.
The New API Endpoints
After analyzing survey results, use cases, and UserVoice feedback, we prioritized the migration of v5 endpoints that are most important to your work. Today, we’re excited to introduce the following Helix endpoints:
Get Channel Information
GET https://api.twitch.tv/helix/channels
Gets channel information including latest stream title and game.
Modify Channel Information
PATCH https://api.twitch.tv/helix/channels
Modifies channel information for users including the stream title and game.
Search Channels
GET https://api.twitch.tv/helix/search/channels
Returns a list of channels (users who have streamed within the past 6 months) that match the query via channel name or description either entirely or partially. Results include both live and offline channels. Online channels will have additional metadata (e.g. `started_at`, `tag_ids`). See sample response for distinction.
Search Categories
GET https://api.twitch.tv/helix/search/categories
Returns a list of games or categories that match the query via name either entirely or partially.
Get Stream Key
GET https://api.twitch.tv/helix/streams/key
Get channel stream key.
Start Commercial
POST https://api.twitch.tv/helix/channels/commercial
Starts a commercial on a specified channel.
Create User Follows
POST https://api.twitch.tv/helix/users/follows
Adds a specified user to the followers of a specified channel.
Delete User Follows
DELETE https://api.twitch.tv/helix/users/follows
Deletes a specified user from the followers of a specified channel.
Get Cheermotes
GET https://api.twitch.tv/helix/bits/cheermotes
Retrieves the list of available Cheermotes, animated emotes to which viewers can assign Bits, to cheer in chat.
And one more thing…The Hype Train API
We aren’t just porting existing functionality to Helix, we are providing brand new endpoints like the Hype Train API and webhook.
Hype Train is a way for community members to unite to support a streamer they love. It challenges the community to reach epic levels of hype and rewards participants for keeping the train on track. A Hype Train will kick off when there’s a spike in support events (such as subscriptions or use of Bits) from different viewers in a channel, based on a threshold set by each Streamer.
Now, developers like yourself have real-time access to all Hype Train data, making it possible to trigger new dynamic experiences and interactions based on Hype Trains starting, increasing the progress bar, and achieving each level. Refer to the “Get Hype Train Events” API reference and webhook reference.
We hope these endpoints provide functionality you’ve been looking forward to within Helix. Please refer to the API reference for the technical details. Should you have any comments or questions, feel free to add them to the forum announcement regarding these updates.