OBS Stream Dock

Set your stream title and category on Twitch and YouTube at once and read and write both chats in one combined feed, right from docks inside OBS Studio. No browser dashboards, no extra apps, no context switching.

Status: early development. Stream info works on Twitch and YouTube; the combined chat is new and being tested.

Project page: zurai.github.io/obs-stream-dock · Privacy policy

Why

When you simulcast to Twitch and YouTube, updating the stream title means editing it in two dashboards. Existing all-in-one tools either moved this feature behind a subscription or route your stream through their servers. This project keeps everything local and inside OBS.

How it works

• An OBS Python script starts a small local web server when OBS loads, and stops it when OBS closes.
• The UI is a Custom Browser Dock pointing to http://127.0.0.1:47823/.
• One-time login to Twitch and Google via device code flow. Tokens are stored locally and refresh automatically.
• Apply updates both platforms and shows a per-platform result (✓, ✗ or ⏳ pending).

Twitch

• Title and category via PATCH /helix/channels (scope channel:manage:broadcast)
• Category search with autocomplete via /helix/search/categories

Combined chat

• A second dock shows Twitch and YouTube chat in one feed, each message marked with its platform
• Twitch chat is read over Twitch's anonymous IRC WebSocket; sending uses POST /helix/chat/messages (scope user:write:chat)
• YouTube chat is read with liveChatMessages.streamList, a gRPC server stream that costs 5 quota units per connection instead of polling. It runs in a small helper process so gRPC can never take OBS down. Sending uses liveChatMessages.insert (50 units per message)
• Twitch emotes plus 7TV, BTTV and FFZ emotes of your channel
• Emote picker (☺ next to the input, grouped by channel and global, with search) and : autocomplete: type :pog and pick Pog with the arrow keys and Tab/Enter. It covers 7TV, BTTV, FFZ and every Twitch emote you may use, including subs on other channels (GET /helix/chat/emotes/user, scope user:read:emotes)
• Super Chats, memberships and gifts are highlighted; deleted messages and banned users are struck through
• Mod tools for both platforms: hover a message for delete / 10-minute timeout / ban (bans need a second click), click a name for a user card in the style of Twitch's viewer card (profile picture, badges, account age, subscription months, the user's messages with time) with timeouts from 1 minute to 1 week, ban, unban, warn and shoutout (Twitch)
• Twitch chat modes behind 🛡 in the header: slow, followers-only, subscribers-only, emote-only, unique chat, Shield Mode and clear chat. Active modes show as chips in the header
• Slash commands for Twitch like in Twitch's own chat: /ban, /unban, /timeout user 10m reason, /untimeout, /warn, /shoutout (/so), /clear, /slow, /followers, /subscribers, /emoteonly, /uniquechat (each with an …off variant), /shield, /shieldoff, /help
• Twitch moderation uses the Helix moderation endpoints (scopes moderator:manage:chat_messages, …:banned_users, …:chat_settings, …:warnings, …:shoutouts, …:shield_mode)
• YouTube moderation uses liveChatMessages.delete (20 quota units) and liveChatBans.insert/delete (200 units each). YouTube can only lift a ban by its ID, so bans made from the dock are remembered in data/youtube_bans.json; older bans have to be lifted in YouTube Studio. YouTube's API has no chat modes, warnings or ban reasons
• The chat is meant for you: showing a merged chat on the Twitch stream itself conflicts with Twitch's simulcasting rules

YouTube

• Title and optional description of the live or upcoming broadcast via liveBroadcasts.update (falls back to videos.update)
• If no broadcast exists yet, the title is kept and applied automatically once the broadcast is live (checked every 30 s while OBS is streaming)
• Works with a separate YouTube output, for example from a multistream plugin
• YouTube's API has no game field; titles are limited to 100 characters

Requirements

• OBS Studio 32+ on Windows
• 64-bit Python 3.12 (OBS supports 3.6–3.12), plus grpcio and protobuf for the YouTube chat (requirements.txt)
• Your own Twitch application and Google Cloud project (see below)

Setup

1. Install 64-bit Python 3.12 and select its folder in OBS under Tools → Scripts → Python Settings. For the YouTube chat, run python -m pip install -r requirements.txt with that Python.
2. Twitch: register an application in the Twitch Developer Console (client type Public, redirect URL http://localhost). Copy its client ID.
3. YouTube: in the Google Cloud Console, create a project, enable the YouTube Data API v3, set up the Google Auth Platform (audience External, add yourself as a test user or publish the app) and create an OAuth client of type TVs and Limited Input devices. Copy client ID and client secret.
   • While the app is in Testing mode, Google expires the login after 7 days.
4. Copy config.example.json to config.local.json next to the script and fill in the IDs and the secret. This file is ignored by git.
5. In OBS, add obs_stream_dock.py under Tools → Scripts.
6. Add two docks under Docks → Custom Browser Docks: http://127.0.0.1:47823/ (stream info) and http://127.0.0.1:47823/chat.html (chat).
7. Log in with Twitch and YouTube in the stream info dock and confirm the codes in your browser.
8. The YouTube chat connects automatically when you start streaming and the broadcast is live, or with connect in the chat dock.

Tokens are stored in data/ next to the script, which is also ignored by git.

Roadmap

1. Feasibility: OBS Python script serving a browser dock reliably
2. Twitch: login, title, category search
3. YouTube: login, title, timing around stream start
4. Polish: title templates, theming
5. Combined chat: read and write Twitch and YouTube in one dock, with 7TV/BTTV/FFZ emotes

License

MIT