Welcome to a new, more intuitive Developer Rig

Update: Since the publishing of this blog**,** we unveiled the beta build of a new Native Developer Rig, a rebuilt version of the Rig focused on usability, stability and speed. Visit our Forum post for more information and where to download the new Rig.

The Developer Rig concept is a cornerstone of Twitch’s developer outreach. Our vision for building Extensions on Twitch requires that we provide the tools that developers need to build and test Extensions quickly and intuitively. Since we launched the Developer Rig, we have made consistent improvements to start times, online and local capabilities and product management features. Lowering the barrier to entry for developers to build on Twitch is our number one priority.

As part of our product planning cycle, we conducted research to gauge how well we’re hitting our own goals. What we’ve heard from our community is that the Developer Rig needs some love. The major obstacles we’ve heard from you are that it’s challenging to get started, some of the user experience is unclear and the documentation is hard to grok.

Thanks to your feedback, today, we’re releasing a rebuilt and redesigned Developer Rig. The new Developer Rig is available now.

To improve the Developer Rig experience, we spent a lot of time thinking about how to get developers started as quickly, intuitively, and efficiently as possible in a stable and reliable environment.

Reduced start time

When you download the Rig, you just need to invoke a simple script to install dependencies and configure your dev machine. After that, type yarn start to launch the Rig and you’re in. We now drop a user directly in an Extensions building experience without having to manually enter commands. On the first-run experience, you can create your own project or use a Twitch-provided sample. If you already have Extension Projects in the Rig, it pre-populates them for you. Finally, in order to start up front and back-end services, you simply click two buttons.

Intuitive workflow

We are also introducing the concept of an Extension Project — this is a combination of the Extension manifest you create on our dev site, along with your code. You can use the Rig to create an Extension Project, including your own code or samples created by Twitch. We’re also releasing a brand new React-based boilerplate sample that you can easily add to your Extension Projects. With an Extension Project, it will make running your Extension in the Rig a lot simpler with pre-populated commands that you need to run the Rig and contextually relevant tutorials and documentation for when you need them.

Improved documentation

Due to popular demand, we’ve reworked the Rig documentation. We streamlined the README file (getting started info) and created a new document to focus on the Rig. In addition, a new Rig UI leverages the Rig itself to provide the contextual information you need. Developers can now rely on technical documentation for getting started or when they are stuck.

From you desktop machine, download the new Developer Rig here.

Let us know what you think by connecting with us @twitchdev on Twitter or in the developer forums. Have fun building with the new Rig. We can’t wait to see your Extension on Twitch!

Ready to build interactive experiences on Twitch? Start now!