Twitch Drops Bot

A Node.js bot that uses Puppeteer to automatically watch Twitch streams and claim drop rewards.

Getting Started

The recommended way of using this bot is to use Docker.

Docker

Tags

latest - The latest development version. This includes all commits from the dev branch.

latest-release - The latest release version. This includes all commits from the master branch.

vX.X.X - Specific release versions.

Pull the image

Pull the latest release image with docker pull ghcr.io/tychothetaco/twitch-drops-bot:latest-release.

Starting the container

Use one of the following commands to start the container. Make sure you run this command in the same directory as config.json, since it will map the current directory to the /app/data directory in the container. If this is the first time running the bot, a config.json file will be created in the current directory.

Windows (Command Prompt): docker run --rm -v %cd%:/app/data -i -t --sig-proxy=false ghcr.io/tychothetaco/twitch-drops-bot

Linux: docker run --rm -v ${PWD}:/app/data -i -t --sig-proxy=false ghcr.io/tychothetaco/twitch-drops-bot

To detach from the docker session without terminating it, use CTRL-P CTRL-Q.

Non-Docker Setup

1. Install Node.js (Requires version 16+)
2. Install Google Chrome
3. Install this package: npm install .
4. Build the app: npm run build
5. Start the bot with node dist/index.js or npm run start. If there is no configuration file, a default one will be created.
6. By default, the bot will attempt to watch all games. You can change which games that the bot watches by specifying game IDs in the config file. See games.csv for the game IDs.

After updating your install, re-run npm install . and npm run build.

Raspberry Pi

Make sure to install the latest version of Node.js, look at this link.

To install Node.js 16 use the following commands:

$ sudo curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_16.x | bash -
$ sudo sudo apt-get update && apt-get install -y nodejs

Options

There are multiple options you can configure. They can be provided as command line arguments or in a config JSON file. Options passed as command line arguments will override items in the config file. If no command line arguments are provided, a default config file will be generated.

A sample config file looks like this:

{
    "browser": "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Google\\Chrome\\Application\\chrome.exe",
    "games": ["30921", "511224", "488552"],
    "headless": true,
    "headless_login": false,
    "interval": 15,
    "load_timeout_secs": 30,
    "failed_stream_retry": 3,
    "failed_stream_timeout": 30,
    "browser_args": [],
    "watch_unlisted_games": false,
    "hide_video": false,
    "show_account_not_linked_warning": true,
    "ignored_games": [],
    "attempt_impossible_campaigns": true,
    "watch_streams_when_no_drop_campaigns_active": false,
    "broadcasters": [],
    "tui": {
        "enabled": false
    },
    "updates": {
        "type": "release",
        "enabled": true
    },
    "logging": {
        "enabled": true,
        "level": "debug"
    }
}

Below is a list of all available options.

--config <path> The path to your configuration file.

• Alias: -c
• Default: config.json

--browser <path> | browser The path to your browser executable. Only Google Chrome is currently supported. Although Puppeteer includes a version of Chromium, it does not support the video format required to watch Twitch streams, so a separate Google Chrome installation is required.

• Alias: -b
• Default: Operating system dependent

‑‑games <ids> | games A list of IDs of the games that the bot should automatically watch. See games.csv for a list of game IDs (Note that this is not a complete list - this bot supports any games with time based Drops). If empty or omitted, the bot will try to watch all games. If provided as a command line argument, this should be a comma-separated list of IDs. If provided in the JSON config, this should be an array of strings. This list is in order of priority! The bot will give priority to games that are at the beginning of the list. For example: Your config file has "games": ["1", "2", "3"]. The bot is currently watching a stream for game 2. The bot periodically checks if there are active campaigns/streams for the other games listed, and finds one for game 1. Game 1 is listed first in the config, so it has a higher priority and the bot will switch to it. If there are multiple active campaigns for a game, then it will give priority to the one that ends first.

• Alias: -g

‑‑username <string> | username Your Twitch username. It is only used to automatically fill out the login page. This is required if headless-login is true, otherwise it is optional.

• Alias: -u

‑‑password <string> | password Your Twitch password. It is only used to automatically fill out the login page. This is required if headless-login is true, otherwise it is optional.

• Alias: -p

‑‑headless-login | headless_login Login to Twitch in headless mode. If this is enabled, you must also provide a username and password. This is useful for logging in remotely.

• Default: false

‑‑headless <boolean> | headless Toggle headless mode. If false, this will display the browser at all times. Useful for debugging.

• Default: true

‑‑interval <minutes> | interval The number of minutes to wait between checking for new drop campaigns.

• Alias: -i
• Default: 15

‑‑browser‑args <args> | browser_args Extra arguments to pass to the browser instance. If provided as a command line argument, this should be a comma-separated list of args. Note that \ is used as an escape character so if you want to use a comma in one of the args, it needs to be escaped so this --some-arg=a,b,c would be --some-arg=a\,b\,c If provided in the JSON config, this should be an array of strings.

‑‑watch‑unlisted‑games | watch_unlisted_games When true, the app will watch streams of games that are not listed in the config if the listed games' campaigns are completed or no streams are active.

• Default: false

‑‑cookies‑path <path> | cookies_path The path to a file containing Twitch login cookies. If the file does not exist, one will be created after logging in.

• Default: cookies‑<username>.json

‑‑show‑account‑not‑linked‑warning | show_account_not_linked_warning Show a warning if your Twitch account is not linked to a Drop Campaign.

• Alias: -sanlw
• Default: true

‑‑load‑timeout‑secs <seconds> | load_timeout_secs The number of seconds to wait for page loading. Increasing the timeout can help with low-end devices (such as: Raspberry Pi).

• Alias: -t
• Default: 30

‑‑failed‑stream‑retry <count> | failed_stream_retry The number of failures a stream can have before being (temporarily) blacklisted.

• Default: 3

‑‑failed‑stream‑timeout <minutes> | failed_stream_timeout The number of minutes to wait before removing a stream from the blacklist.

• Default: 30

‑‑hide‑video | hide_video Change the visibility of all video elements to hidden to lower the CPU usage.

• Default: false

‑‑ignored-games | ignored_games A list of IDs of games that the bot should ignore. This is useful when watch_unlisted_games is true, but you want to ignore some games.

‑‑attempt-impossible-campaigns | attempt_impossible_campaigns When true, the bot will make progress towards Drop Campaigns even if the campaign is expected to end before we can finish watching to claim the Drop. For example: A Drop Campaign will end in 30 minutes. We have watched 15 / 60 minutes for one of the Drops. Normally, we will not be able to finish and claim the Drop so there is no point in trying. However, sometimes Drop Campaigns get extended which means we would have had enough time.

• Default: true

‑‑watch-streams-when-no-drop-campaigns-active | watch_streams_when_no_drop_campaigns_active When true, the bot will watch streams when there are no Drop Campaigns active, or if there are no streams online for any pending Drop Campaigns. This is useful if you still want to claim community points.

• Default: false

‑-broadcasters | broadcasters A list of broadcasters (streamers) usernames that the bot should watch when it is idle (no Drop Campaigns active). This list is in order of priority.

tui Changes text-based user interface (TUI) options. This should be in JSON format.

• enabled: boolean - When true, enables a text-based interface for the bot. NOTE: THIS IS AN EXPERIMENTAL FEATURE.

updates Changes update check settings. This should be in JSON format.

• enabled: boolean - When true (default), the bot will check for updates once per day.
• type: string - Determines which type of update to be notified of.
  • "dev" - Notify about updates for new development versions and release versions of the bot.
  • "release" - (default) Only notify for new release versions of the bot.

logging - Change options related to logging. This should be in JSON format.

• enabled: When true (default), the app will log data to a file. Note that if you disable logging, it will be very difficult for me to diagnose any issues that you might run into.
• file: Path of the log file (default: log-XXXXXXXXXX.txt). If you use this option, the file will be overwritten whenever you restart the app!
• level: The level of logging to write to the log file. One of: debug (default), info, warn, error.

Update Games List

If you want to update the list of games found in games.csv, just run npm run updateGames or npm run u.

Troubleshooting

Error watching stream

When this happens, its usually because the stream page did not load fast enough. It's normal for this to happen occasionally, but if it happens often, it might be due to a slow or unstable network connection. This can also happen if you're using a low-power system such as a Raspberry Pi.

Try increasing load_timeout_secs to 60 or 90.