PixelyChat for Stream Deck

Start and stop your PixelyChat Action Widgets from an Elgato Stream Deck: Countdown, Stopwatch, Starting Soon, Be Right Back, Visual Shoutout, Spin Wheel, Media Player and more, with one key each.

PixelyChat is a free desktop app for streamers on Twitch, YouTube, Kick and TikTok: one chat for all platforms, alerts, overlays, widgets, rewards, a chat bot and more. No ads, no subscription.

What the plugin does

• One key per Action Widget. Press to start it, press again to stop it.
• Live status on every key. Keys show what's running, with the remaining time of countdowns and the time of stopwatches.
• Settings stay in PixelyChat. A key only stores which widget it controls, so changing a widget in PixelyChat never breaks your keys.
• Works in Multi Actions. Switch your scene and start your intro with a single press.
• Works locally. The plugin only talks to PixelyChat on your own computer. No account, no internet connection, no data sent anywhere.
• 8 languages: English, German, Spanish, French, Japanese, Korean and Chinese (Simplified and Traditional).

Get started

1. Install PixelyChat and the PixelyChat plugin from the Elgato Marketplace.
2. In PixelyChat, open Setup → Integrations → Stream Deck and turn on Enable Stream Deck.
3. In the Stream Deck app, drag PixelyChat → Trigger Action Widget onto a key and choose the widget.

Needs Stream Deck 7.1 or newer on Windows 10+ or macOS 12+, and PixelyChat running on the same computer. More in the PixelyChat manual.

Found a bug or have an idea? Open an issue or join the PixelyChat Discord.

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For developers

The rest of this page is about building and changing the plugin.

How it talks to PixelyChat

One shared Socket.IO connection to PixelyChat's local server (127.0.0.1:4200, query dock=streamdeck). The contract lives in src/protocol.ts and mirrors src/main/local-server.ts in pixelychat-app:

• streamdeck-state (app → plugin): { protocolVersion, widgets: [{ id, name, type, enabled, active }] }
• streamdeck:toggle (plugin → app, acked): { widgetId } → { ok, errorCode? }. Same as the widget's global hotkey: start it, or stop it while running.
• Connection error streamdeck-disabled: Stream Deck is switched off in PixelyChat (Setup → Integrations). The plugin shows "turned off" and checks again every 15 s.

The app only adds fields. A trigger is never retried or sent after a reconnect.

Development

Enable Stream Deck's developer mode once (npx streamdeck dev). Without it, streamdeck restart (and so npm run watch) reports success but keeps the old plugin process running.

npm install
npm run build        # bundle to com.pixelychat.streamdeck.sdPlugin/bin
npx streamdeck link com.pixelychat.streamdeck.sdPlugin   # once: load into the Stream Deck app
npm run watch        # rebuild + restart the plugin on change
npm run validate     # Elgato validator
npm run pack         # dist/com.pixelychat.streamdeck.streamDeckPlugin
node scripts/fake-stream-deck.mjs   # test without hardware (PixelyChat must be running)

scripts/fake-stream-deck.mjs plays the Stream Deck app: it launches the built plugin, places keys, presses them (this really starts/stops a widget in PixelyChat) and checks titles, images, alerts and the settings panel data.

Plugin logs: com.pixelychat.streamdeck.sdPlugin/logs/. If the plugin dies before it logs anything, check Stream Deck's own log (~/Library/Logs/ElgatoStreamDeck/StreamDeck.log).

Leave Nodejs.Debug out of the manifest for releases (no debugger by default). "Debug": "disabled" passes streamdeck validate but makes Node exit on launch. Use "Debug": "enabled" only locally when attaching a debugger.

License

MIT. Icons from Lucide, see THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.txt.