Core API

Mixer's Core API is the bread and butter of Mixer's platform. It allows you to request various information about the Mixer Platform and the Users, Streamers and items on there. A lot of the Core API powers our Apps and Website so the Mixer team uses these docs too!

The Core API is comprised of two core concepts:

  • REST - Retrieve and update information on Mixer
  • Live Updates & Notifications (Constellation) - Get Notifications about changes to information on Mixer.

Rest

If your friend was going to the store and you needed something, you might ask them to "get" something for you. After they get back, they might "put" that item away for you. These are the constructs we use in everyday life, and REST APIs attempt to build on those, but, rather than operating on physical items, you're dealing with objects on the computer.

When you send HTTP requests to webpages, each request contains a verb. Most browsing you do involves your web browser making GET requests—asking for this page, for instance! But there are several other verbs your browser uses:

  • GET looks something up, as we've said
  • POST creates something
  • PUT updates something
  • PATCH patch something
  • DELETE destroys something

On our RESTful API, you make requests by calling VERB https://mixer.com/api/v1/resources. We'll abbreviate this as VERB /resources from now on. For instance, to create a new user, you would call POST /users (the endpoints are always plural). If you want to operate on a particular user object, you would append their ID to that URL, such as GET /users/344 to return information about user ID 344.

You can also run actions on a particular user by chaining on "actions", such as PUT /users/344/confirm, which is used to verify an account. Here's a full blueprint with some examples:

Endpoint Description Example
GET /resources Returns a list of 'resource' objects. GET /users
POST /resources Creates a new 'resource' object. POST /users
GET /resources/{id} Returns information about the 'resource' with the provided ID. GET /users/314
PUT /resources/{id} Updates a resource with the provided ID. PUT /users/314
POST /resources/{id}/action Runs some action on a 'resource'. POST /users/314/action
GET /resources/{id}/data Gets some nested information about a 'resource'. GET /users/314/avatar
DELETE /resources/{id} Delete a resource from the server. DELETE /channels/314/streamKey

To get started with our REST API try out our tutorial.

Rest Reference

You can find complete listings of Mixer's endpoints and resources here

Live Updates via Constellation

Mixer is a dynamic and ever changing platform, as viewers and streamers interact with Mixer data changes on the Mixer Platform. As a Developer continually polling for this data isn't ideal. You'd rapidly exceed the rate limits set out on our API.

Instead Mixer offers an alternative through Live Updates over a service called Constellation. You can connect to constellation and receive updates about changes to something on Mixer. For example if you use REST to retrieve a channel's title then you only get the title once. If it changes you won't know. Constellation solves this by sending you an event that lets you know the title has changed. You can read more about this in our Constellation tutorial.

Additionally, constellation can also tell you when someone Follows or Subscribes to a channel and much much more. Checkout our Constellation Technical Reference for more information.