Legacy Twitch API v5 Shutdown Details and Timeline
Today we are announcing the timeline to decommission the Legacy Twitch API v5 with the shutdown to be completed on February 28, 2022. Twitch application client IDs must migrate to the Twitch API by February 28, 2022, and those that have not made requests to the v5 API before July 15, 2021 will no longer be able to access v5.
We are making this change for several reasons:
The Twitch API Is Where Our Investment Is Focused
The Twitch API, originally released in 2017 has centralized product management to ensure that we deliver an impactful and innovative experience to developers. We’ve steadily added more endpoints to the Twitch API and 2021 has been a great year for expanding functionality. We have launched 27 new endpoints this year that cover features from v5 such as Emotes, Block List management, and Channel Editors and new features like Polls, Channel Points Predictions, and Stream Schedules. We also updated Twitch API endpoint payloads to include highly requested information such as a user’s created_at date for moderation tools, the is_mature flag for retrieving streams, and the game_name when searching for channels.
Up until now, the Twitch API was missing endpoints that community developers needed to fully migrate off of the v5 API. With these additions, the Twitch API includes all the functionality that we intend to migrate from v5. Any features not present in the Twitch API are either not widely used, power use cases that do not provide enough value for Twitch viewers and creators to continue supporting, or are not aligned with our product goals.
The Twitch API Is Better Designed
When we announced the Twitch API in 2017, we set out to provide an improved API experience over our v5 API. The v5 API was closely tied to the Twitch website, which meant that our developer community had to deal with problems around reliability, stability, unannounced breaking changes, and inconsistency.
The Twitch API also has more granular authorization requirements for data access, which gives our viewers and creators more control over the data they share with third parties.
The Twitch API is Built With Twitch’s Latest Technology
Technology at Twitch is constantly evolving. The v5 API is based on a tech stack that we no longer invest in (i.e. it’s tech debt). As a result, we are not able to bring developers the same improvements to latency, reliability, and stability on v5 that we have with the Twitch API.
v5 migration guide
To help developers migrate their applications to the Twitch API, we provide the v5 migration guide in our developer documentation. This guide includes a comprehensive list of equivalent endpoints and scopes related to updating to the latest version of the API.
To make the transition easier for your users, we provide scope equivalence between versions. This will minimize the chances your application will require users to re-authorize your application for the equivalent Twitch API scope. In other words, if your application has already requested a v5 scope, you will not need to request the equivalent Twitch API scope, and an existing access token will already have the necessary authorization to perform the latest API calls.
v5 shutdown timeline
Given the number of v5 migrations, we wanted to ensure that you have sufficient time to update your applications and that we are reaching developers as soon as possible. A phased shutdown of v5 will begin in February 2022. Here are the shutdown windows:
- February 7, 2022 – 1-hour shutdown starting at 11:00am PDT
- February 9, 2022 – 2-hour shutdown starting at 11:00am PDT
- February 14, 2022 – 4-hour shutdown starting at 11:00am PDT
- February 16, 2022 – 6-hour shutdown starting at 11:00am PDT
- February 22, 2022 – 24-hour shutdown starting at 11:00am PDT
- February 28, 2022 – v5 permanent shutdown
The Future of the Twitch API
We understand this is a big shift. We are focused on bringing new features and functionality to the Twitch API as Twitch grows and evolves, and we look forward to the moments when additional endpoints power completely new interactive experiences.
The functionality we build is the direct result of your feedback via UserVoice and our quarterly surveys. Thank you for sharing your voice through these methods. These surveys capture the challenges you experience, provide further understanding of third-party use cases, and explore new product ideas. This invaluable information helps us continue to prioritize updates and guide product direction.
Please join us for the TwitchDev monthly update broadcast at 2pm EDT today for further discussion and questions. Stay tuned to our forum announcements, and thank you for all you do for the Twitch community.