Put queues, reward redemption, leaderboards and goals into an interactive panel on your Twitch channel page (Twitch calls these Extensions). Viewers join in with a click, without leaving the stream.
What it solves
Chat commands are a barrier for new viewers: they have to know which commands exist, how to type them, and typing on a phone is slow. The panel turns the common ones into lists and buttons right next to the stream, so people can see the queue, redeem a reward, or scan the leaderboard without asking "who's up next?".
Getting started
- In the dashboard sidebar, open Extension and turn on "Enable the extension panel" on the Getting started tab. While it is off, the panel only shows a setup prompt and nothing else.
- Follow the link on that page to your Twitch Extensions management page, then place the extension in a panel or the video component slot from the Twitch creator dashboard. Until you do, viewers cannot see it.
- Use Features to choose what viewers can see, and Home screen to arrange the layout.
The switches on Getting started and Features save as soon as you flip them; there is no save button. The Home screen tab does need you to press save.
The four tabs
- Getting started: the master switch and the install link.
- Features: per-app switches, moderator controls, the launch screen, the Bits master switch, and who can interact (interaction switch, ignore list, chat activity requirement).
- Home screen: the layout of the panel's home screen. App icons and widgets share one grid; drag to reorder, and a true-size preview sits next to it.
- Bits overview: read-only. Lists which features currently charge in Bits. To change anything, go to that feature's own "Extension" tab.
What viewers see in the panel
The panel is a row of apps: Donate, Commands, Leaderboard, Points, Check-in, Queue, Rewards, Prediction, Giveaway tickets, Marathon, Watch and Settings. Each app maps to one feature of this site. The home screen can also hold widgets: leaderboard, points, queue, prediction, marathon, goals, and a block of your own custom content (bold, italic, strikethrough and lists; no links or images).
- Both switches must be on. A tile appears only when it is enabled in Features and the matching feature is enabled in the dashboard. Anything marked "Feature off" needs to be turned on from its own feature page first.
- Prediction is off by default. Turn it on in Features if you want viewers to see it in the panel.
- Donate is an outside link. It opens your public channel page. Payments are never handled inside the panel, which is also why it cannot be the launch screen.
Launch screen
By default, the panel opens on the home screen. You can pick one app instead, so viewers land straight on it and go back to reach the home screen. For the leaderboard you can also choose which board shows; a viewer who taps into the leaderboard from the home screen still sees the first board in your leaderboard settings. If the chosen app has nothing to show right now, or needs the viewer to share their identity and they have not, the panel falls back to the home screen.
Who can interact
Actions in the panel (joining the queue, redeeming, predicting and so on) need the viewer to agree to share their identity in Twitch, so we know who they are. Viewers who have not agreed cannot take these actions. On top of that, you have four controls of your own:
- Allow viewer interaction. Turn it off and every viewer's panel becomes read-only, with the action entry points hidden. Your own controls and your moderators' are not affected.
- Only allow interaction while live. Off by default, so viewers can still act while you are offline. Turn it on and the panel is read-only whenever you are offline, the same as switching the option above off. It resumes by itself when you go live.
- Ignore list. People on the list get a read-only panel that looks exactly like the one shown when interaction is off, and they cannot tell they were added. Type a Twitch username and press Enter; up to 200 people. If someone changes their name, the list shows the new one.
- Chat activity requirement. Viewers must have chatted within a recent window to use interactive features, which keeps out people who just leave the page open. The window is 1 to 60 minutes, 5 by default. It only applies while you are live; offline there is no limit. You can exempt certain roles, who can interact without chatting.
Bits
Viewers can pay with Bits for a few things in the panel: joining the queue, jumping to the top of the queue, a make-up check-in, and redeeming a reward. There is one master switch here; which items charge and how much is set on each feature's own "Extension" tab.
- Requires Twitch Affiliate or above. That is a Twitch rule. Until the channel qualifies the switch is locked and no Bits products are listed.
- Turning the master switch off disables all of it. The panel stops showing Bits products and no new purchases can be started. Your per-item settings are kept and come back when you turn it on again.
Moderator controls
With "Let mods manage from the panel" on, your moderators see extra management controls in the panel and can handle the queue, reward redemptions, predictions and the marathon. You choose which apps are open to moderators with the "Mods" column in Features; a blank cell means that app has nothing to hand over. With the master switch off, moderators see the same panel as viewers.
Common misunderstandings
- The panel has no song requests, no cover requests and no point mini-games such as the slot machine. Those exist in the dashboard, but Twitch's review rules do not accept music or gambling-like content in Extensions, so they are left out on purpose, not unfinished. Viewers use chat commands or your public channel page for them.
- Hiding a tile does not turn the feature off. The Features switch only decides whether the tile is in the panel; chat commands and OBS widgets keep working. The reverse also holds: if you turn a feature off entirely in the dashboard, its tile disappears from the panel.
- "Moderator" here means a Twitch channel moderator. It is separate from member roles under Channel permissions, and neither affects the other.
- Twitch only. Extensions are a Twitch feature. YouTube viewers should use your public channel page instead.
- Ignoring someone is not blocking them. They can still chat and use commands as normal; only the panel is read-only for them.