In this series, I explain how to use Twitch EventSub and Courier to automatically send notifications to multiple destinations – Slack, Discord, and more – when your Twitch stream goes live.
In part one, we built a Node.js app using Express.js to accept events from Twitch EventSub. In part two, we listened for our event and triggered a notification using Courier. Now, in part three, we're going to use Courier’s List API to send multiple notifications when our event is triggered.
Follow along with the series:
Part two: How to send notifications when your stream goes Twitch live
Part three (this post): How to create and notify a list of subscribers using Courier
Need help getting started with sending notifications about your Twitch stream? Join our community on Discord – we’re happy to chat!
In this tutorial, I'll show you how to extend the Node.js and Express app that we updated in part two to send notifications to more than one destination using Courier’s Lists API. We'll update the sendOnline function to use a List send. I'll also demo sending to a Discord channel.
To complete this tutorial, you'll need a few things:
Courier account – it’s free to sign up and includes 10,000 notifications per month
If you’re using the Node.js and Express.js app we created in part one, it should either be deployed somewhere publicly accessible that supports HTTPS and port 443, or be running locally using ngrok.
We'll need an existing Discord Bot that Courier can use to send your notifications. If you don't have one, check out our Discord Integration Guide to get started.
You'll also need your Courier Auth Token for the following steps. You can find your Courier Auth Token in Settings > API Keys in your Courier account. Use the Published Production Key.
To send to multiple recipients, we'll need to refactor the sendOnline function to use a list send instead of the regular send. We'll also need to create a list of recipients. To continue sending the SMS notification we created in part two, we'll create a stored profile for the recipient and subscribe them to our list.
To create our list, we'll use the Courier Lists API. Our list will need a list id and a name. For this tutorial, we'll create a list with an id of "twitch.stream.online" and a name of "Twitch Stream Online." You can learn more about using list id patterns in our Help Center.
Let's create our list by executing the following cURL command in your terminal, replacing COURIER_AUTH_TOKEN with your auth token:
Create a Courier List
Your new list should now be visible in the data tab in your Courier Account.
Now that we have a list, let's subscribe the recipient we used in part two to it. To do this, we'll first need to use the Profiles API to store the recipient's profile information in Courier. Then, we'll make a call to the List API to subscribe them to the list.
We'll use the recipient id and profile information from the existing send command. Execute the following cURL command in your terminal using your values:
Create a profile in Courier for the SMS recipient
Now that we have the profile stored, we can use the recipient id and subscribe it to our list. Execute the following cURl command in your terminal replacing AYDRIAN10036 with your recipient id:
Subscribe the SMS recipient to the list
Repeat this process to add more subscribers to the list. When you’re ready, let's update the code to send to our new list.
Previously, we told Courier to send to a single recipient. In order to send to the list we just created, we’ll need to use a List send instead.
In your index.js file, replace the following in the sendOnline function:
Original sendOnline function Courier code
With the following:
sendOnline function Courier code to send to a list
Now if you were to run this code, it would still deliver the notification via SMS.
Now that we can send notifications to multiple recipients with Lists, let's expand the available destinations. Recently, Discord committed to fully supporting online communities, making it a top choice for notifying people about our Twitch stream. Let's add the ability to have Courier post to a channel using a Discord Bot.
Let's start by configuring the Discord integration. This will require you to enter the bot token for the bot that Courier will send as.
Now we can update our existing Twitch Online Alert notification. We'll add Discord by clicking “Add Channel” and selecting Discord from the list of configured integrations.
We can now select Discord under Channels to the left and start designing our notification. Because we have already created our SMS notification, we can reuse those content blocks for Discord. Simply drag the blocks in the Library section to our Discord notification.
We now have a message that matches our SMS. Feel free to add more content blocks to your Discord notifications. When you’re finished, click “Publish Changes” in the upper righthand corner.
If you'd like, you can preview the generated Discord markdown using the Preview tab. You can use the test event we created in part two.
Your notification is now ready to start sending to Discord. The last step is to identify the Discord channel that you want to post your notification in and add it as a recipient to our list. Similar to how we added a recipient for our SMS notification, we'll first create a profile in Courier and then subscribe it to the list.
We'll need the channel id of the channel we want to send to. An easy way to retrieve that is to turn on Developer Mode in Discord. You can go to User Settings > Appearance and scroll to Advanced at the bottom and toggle Developer Mode to on. This will allow you to right click on a channel and copy the id.
I'm going to use the #show-and-tell channel in Courier’s Discord server, which you’re welcome to join. For the recipient id, I'm going to use DISCORD_COURIER_SHOW_AND_TELL. It's a little long but descriptive.
Execute the following cURL command to create a profile for the channel in Courier:
Create profile in Courier for Discord Channel recipient
Now we can execute the following cURL command to subscribe it to our list:
Subscribe the Discord Channel recipient to the list
Now the next time you go online, you should see that your Discord Bot has posted the following:
With the update to the sendOnline function, your finished application should look like the following.
Full updated application for Part 3
Our application will process `stream.online` events and pass them to Courier along with additional stream data. Courier will then create SMS or Discord notifications based on the profiles in your list of subscribers.
You now have an application that will send notifications to a list of subscribers, via SMS and Discord, when you start your Twitch stream. I encourage you to explore adding more subscribers to your list and adding even more destinations like Slack and Facebook Messenger. Join our Discord community and let me know where you go from here!
-Aydrian