The basics
What is the Twitch !clip command?
It is a chat command that creates a Twitch clip. Someone types !clip in your chat, and Boltis clips the last 60 seconds of your stream through Twitch's official clip API, the same one the Clip button on your channel page uses.
Only the first word of the message is checked, so !clip that was insane works and someone saying "!clipboard" does not trigger anything.
Setup
How can my mods clip my stream?
Four steps, and the whole thing takes about two minutes.
- 1Connect Twitch with chat permissionIn Boltis, reconnect your Twitch account and approve chat access. Boltis needs permission to read chat so it can see the command, and to send messages so it can reply.
- 2Turn the command onOpen Settings, find "Chat command (!clip)", and tick "Enable !clip in chat". Boltis joins your channel and shows Connected once it is listening.
- 3Choose who can use itPick Everyone, "Subs, VIPs & Mods", or moderators only. Boltis checks the badges on each chat message before it clips.
- 4Choose what chat seesReply with a link to the clip, reply with a short confirmation, or say nothing at all.
Permissions
Who is allowed to use the clip command?
Whoever you decide. Boltis reads the badges on every chat message, so changing the setting takes effect on the next message rather than needing a restart.
There is also a 30 second cooldown between chat clips regardless of the level you pick, so opening it up to everyone does not mean opening it up to spam.
Opening it up
Can viewers create clips of my stream?
Yes, if you let them. Setting the level to Everyone means any viewer can type !clip and save the moment.
Whether that is a good idea depends on your chat. A small chat that is paying attention is an excellent clipping team, and the cooldown keeps the worst case manageable. A large or rowdy chat is usually better served by "Subs, VIPs & Mods", which still gives you plenty of people watching for you without opening it to everyone.
Replies
What does chat see when someone clips?
Your choice of three, including saying nothing.
Link
Posts a link to the clip. If you have sharing turned on, chat gets a boltis.app page; otherwise it gets the clips.twitch.tv link.
Confirmation only
Posts "Clip saved with Boltis!" without a link.
Off
Saves the clip silently and posts nothing in chat.
Where it lands
What happens to a clip after someone runs the command?
It lands in two places. It becomes a real Twitch clip on your channel, credited to you, and it appears in your Boltis library alongside the clips you made with the hotkey.
That second half is the point. A clip sitting in your Twitch clip list still needs downloading, cropping, captioning and exporting before it can be posted anywhere, which is why most clips are never used again. In Boltis it is already in the editor that does the vertical layout and the captions.
The honest comparison
How is this different from a chat bot like Nightbot?
Let us be straight about this: clip commands are not new. Nightbot, StreamElements and Fossabot all offer one, and if you already run a bot you already have this. Anyone claiming the command itself is a unique feature is not being honest with you.
The difference is where the clip ends up. A bot creates the clip and stops. What you have afterwards is a URL in your Twitch clip list, and the distance between that and a posted TikTok is a browser, a download, an editor, a crop and a caption pass. That distance is why most clips are never used.
With Boltis the command is the capture step of a workflow that continues. The honest trade in the other direction: a cloud bot runs whether or not your PC is on. Boltis runs on your PC, so if the app is closed the command does nothing.
Who this is for
Why this matters more if you are small
Big streamers have clippers. A dedicated person or an editor watching the stream catches the moments, and the streamer never thinks about it.
If you are small you are doing all of it yourself, and the moments worth keeping are exactly the ones where you have no spare hands. Your chat is the closest thing to a clip team you have, and they are already watching for the same reason you would be. This gives them a way to help that costs them one word.