Twitch chat bot

The NextQuest bot watches your Twitch chat for people recommending a game. When it spots one, it replies to that chatter with a message you wrote, usually a link to your public board. Viewers can then suggest the game through your board.

The bot does not add games and does not create suggestions. It only replies. Viewers still suggest through your board. See Your public board.

Turn it on

1. Open Bot in the dashboard. The page is titled Bot Configuration.
2. Switch on Active under Bot active.
3. Check the Response message and Cooldown between responses (seconds).
4. Select Save. The page confirms with "All set. Your bot's ready to go."

The bot joins your channel, using your Twitch name, within a minute. It usually joins sooner. There is no connection status on the page, so a quick test in chat is the way to confirm it works.

When the bot joins after you switch it on, it posts one line in your chat: "NextQuest bot connected. When someone suggests a game in chat, I'll reply." That line has no link on purpose, so a tool that bans first-message links does not ban the bot. It is posted once each time you switch the bot from off to on.

Switch Active off and save to make the bot leave your channel.

Response message

The Response message is what the bot says. It holds up to 300 characters on a single line. A new setup starts with:

Check out the queue at nextquest.app/user/{channel}

You can use three placeholders. NextQuest swaps them for real values and ignores capital letters in the placeholder:

An example: Hey {viewer}, add your pick to {channel}'s queue at {url}.

The bot sends its message as a threaded reply to the chatter's message, so it is easy to find in a busy chat.

The rules for the message:

• It cannot start with / or .. Twitch reads those as chat commands.
• It cannot contain line breaks or other hidden characters.
• It cannot be longer than 300 characters.

If the message is empty, the bot stays silent.

Cooldown

Cooldown between responses (seconds) sets the minimum time between two bot replies in your channel. It applies to your whole channel, not to each chatter.

• Allowed values: 5 to 3600 seconds.
• Default: 60 seconds.

Messages sent during the cooldown are ignored. They do not queue up. Around 30 to 60 seconds suits a busy chat, and around 300 seconds suits a quiet one.

What the bot reacts to

The bot looks for recommendation phrases in chat. The list is fixed. You cannot add, remove or edit phrases.

The phrases come in two groups:

• Game phrases react on their own. Examples are "you should play", "have you played", "have you tried", "add to your backlog" and "would love to see you play".
• Generic phrases only react when the message also contains a gaming word, such as "game", "play", "rpg" or "steam". Examples are "you should try", "would be great", "hidden gem" and "underrated". This keeps talk about films or music from setting it off.

The match tolerates small typos and common chat shorthand such as "u", "pls" and "wanna". Capital letters and apostrophes do not matter.

The bot cannot tell which game a chatter means, or whether the message names a game at all. It sometimes reacts when it should not, and it sometimes misses a recommendation.

If the bot stays quiet

Work through these in order:

1. Check that Active is on and saved. Switch Active on and select Save again.
2. Wait for the cooldown. If the bot replied recently, it ignores messages until the cooldown ends.
3. Check the message. An empty message, or one that starts with / or ., never gets sent.
4. Test with a clear phrase. Type "you should play this game" in chat from another account.
5. Check your chat rules. Restrictions in your Twitch chat, such as followers-only or subscribers-only mode, can stop a bot from posting. Check your chat settings.
6. If you renamed your Twitch channel, sign out and sign in again so NextQuest picks up the new name. The bot joins by your Twitch name.

If it still does not reply, email hello@nextquest.app.

Privacy

The bot reads messages as they arrive. NextQuest does not store chat messages.

Some chat messages go to a third party. The bot first runs a quick check in code. If a message has a recommendation phrase or names a well-known game, the bot sends that message text to TypeSafe AI, a third-party AI service. It sends no username and no channel name. Messages the check does not flag never reach TypeSafe AI. Messages sent to TypeSafe AI are not used for training.

TypeSafe AI makes the final call, so the bot does not reply to messages that only look like recommendations. If TypeSafe AI cannot be reached, the bot stays quiet.

For the full statement, read the Privacy page.