Handy script for a more zen twitch experience

August 13, 2025

I like to watch twitch streams. Watching them in the browser at twitch.tv is generally not an experience which sparks joy though. I’m buffering. I’m declining cookies. I’m getting spammed with notifications to claim a sick new overwatch skin. There’s a little channel point button twerking for me to click it. You get the idea; it’s a heavy noisy experience.

As a result I set out to devise a solution which does spark joy. I came up with a script which leans on DIY desktop staples (dunst, tofi, mpv) and the very nice cli utility streamlink. Here it is:

PLAYER="mpv"
LAUNCHER="tofi"
NOTIFY="dunstify"

# you need an api key, get them here
# https://dev.twitch.tv/docs/api/get-started/
CLIENT_ID="id-here"
CLIENT_SECRET="secret-here-please-sssshh"

# list of streams to check
STREAMS=(
  "limmy"
  "fl0m"
  "northernlion"
  "caedrel"
)

# reassure user that something is happening
"${NOTIFY}" "twitch -- checking who's live beep boop be patient"

# get auth token from twitch
ACCESS_TOKEN=$(curl -s -X POST \
  "https://id.twitch.tv/oauth2/token" \
  -d "client_id=$CLIENT_ID" \
  -d "client_secret=$CLIENT_SECRET" \
  -d "grant_type=client_credentials" \
  | jq -r '.access_token')

# define empty list
LIVE=()

# loop through streams, check if live and append info to list
for STREAM in "${STREAMS[@]}"; do
    RESPONSE=$(curl -s -H "Client-ID: $CLIENT_ID" \
      -H "Authorization: Bearer $ACCESS_TOKEN" \
      "https://api.twitch.tv/helix/streams?user_login=$STREAM")

    LIVE_STATUS=$(echo "$RESPONSE" | jq '.data | length')

    if [ "$LIVE_STATUS" -gt 0 ]; then
      TITLE=$(echo "$RESPONSE" | jq -r '.data[0].title')
      GAME=$(echo "$RESPONSE" | jq -r '.data[0].game_name')
      LIVE+=("$STREAM | $GAME | $TITLE")
    fi
done

# pipe list items into tofi with new lines at the end
choice="$( printf "%s\n" "${LIVE[@]}" | "${LAUNCHER}")"

if [[ -n "$choice" ]]; then
  # get first column from selection aka stream name
  meat=$(echo "$choice" | awk '{print $1}')
  "${NOTIFY}" "twitch -- launching twitch.tv/$meat"
  streamlink twitch.tv/"$meat" 1080p60 --player "${PLAYER}"
fi

What it does:

talk to twitch api to get auth token
loop trough list of streams to check if they’re live (using auth token)
grab some info about streams that are live and append it to a list
pipe said list into tofi
capture user’s choice
open choice in mpv using streamlink

Dependencies

curl
jq
tofi (would work with other launchers dmenu etc.)
mpv (would work with other media players vlc etc.)
dunst (would work with other notification daemons mako etc.)

Positive :)

no chat (you don’t have to read the degenerates spamming LUL)
you can customise the script to use your favourite desktop tools
can rewind!

Negative :(

no chat (you might want to spam LUL)
takes a second to talk to the internet so things don’t launch immediately
have to faff with getting api key - how to get one btw

Hope you enjoyed bye