I understand there is no endpoint to download vods. Would it be a bad practice to use third party tools to implement this feature if my app is only allowing users who grant oauth integration to download vods into my apps system?
It would only allow users who give my app oauth permissions to download their own vods onto my server.
Is there any consensus as to why this isnt supported through the API? Feels so limiting, especially in 2025 the year of the agent.
off the top of my head and my own opinions:
Not enough upvotes or use cases added to uservoice, https://twitch.uservoice.com/forums/310213-developers/suggestions/39228784-extend-clips-api-to-provide-the-mp4-url-so-editors for example
lack of availablity of teams to build the feature
internal issues on how tech exists/runs that disallows “easy access” for API uses cases
legal or other issues we are not aware of
I understand. I am going to copy paste my comment from that UserVoice thread onto here, so that people who stumble on this thread after it is locked see my justifications.
For now I will work with what we have within the TOS. This won’t be the last you (Twitch, not you specifically!) hear of me or this issue.
Thank you for your quick and accurate reply.
Pasted:
Agentic systems would benefit greatly from exposing a download link. While large creators can afford to hire staff for their channel, small creators (<20 avg viewers) do not have this luxury. In fact, the issue becomes exceptionally troubling when you consider the lack of discoverability on twitch; and the raw power of publishing highlights to YouTube.
Such systems will only benefit twitch. Discoverability for small channels is discoverability for twitch itself.
LLMs are evolving at a rapid pace. The inclusion of function calling tools with intelligent prompting, increased context windows, and even reasoners have set the stage for AI agents to offer these forms of personal staff for creators who never had that opportunity before.
Other well respected APIs in the dev community, like YouTube’s v3, are completely ready for the agentic revolution. Twitch is almost there, too. But exposing a download link for authenticated requests is essential to being a leader, and not a reluctant participant, in this revolution.
Such links are already available for creators and even editors of channels through the dashboard. Why not make it available through authenticated requests?
See what YCombinator has to say about the growth of AI Agents as personal staff:
