What you need
Challenger Bot runs on Windows 10 or 11 only — there's no Mac or Linux build.
You'll need a Twitch account for the channel you stream from, and two Windows
utilities the bot automates through: AutoHotkey (drives the
keyboard and mouse commands) and VoiceMacro (drives the voice
trigger-word feature used by !Word). Both are free downloads and
the setup wizard links you to them directly when it needs them.
1. Download and run Challenger Bot
Grab the standalone Windows build and run it — there's nothing to compile and no Python environment to configure. On first launch, Challenger Bot opens its setup wizard directly in your default browser.
2. Complete the browser setup wizard
The wizard walks you through a short sequence: activating your trial or license key, choosing which platforms to read chat from (Twitch, YouTube, or both), authorizing Twitch, selecting your channel, optionally connecting a YouTube live stream, and launching the bot. You don't hand-edit any configuration file — the wizard writes everything for you, including the OAuth tokens it receives from Twitch.
3. Authorize your Twitch channel
The Twitch step uses Twitch's device-code sign-in: the wizard shows a short code and a link to Twitch. Open the link, enter the code on Twitch's own site and approve the request, and the wizard picks up the authorization automatically while it waits in the background. There's no client ID or secret to paste in, and the bot never sees your Twitch password.
4. (Optional) Connect your YouTube live chat
Streaming on YouTube as well? The wizard's YouTube step lets you pull your
YouTube live chat in alongside Twitch. Enable it and paste the
video ID of your live broadcast — YouTube assigns a new one to
every stream, so you set it per broadcast. From then on, messages from your
YouTube viewers count toward the challenge threshold and trigger
!commands right beside your Twitch chat.
YouTube support is read-only: the bot reads live chat but can't post back to it, so its replies appear on your on-screen overlay instead of in YouTube chat. Twitch remains the primary platform — you can skip this step entirely and run Twitch-only.
5. Run your first command
Once the wizard finishes, the bot is live in your channel's chat. Have a viewer (or a second account) type one of the commands from the command reference — by default, ten chat messages total need to land before the first challenge threshold unlocks and something actually fires.
Troubleshooting
Nothing happens when chat types a command. Check that the message threshold has actually been hit — commands don't fire on the first message, they need the configured threshold (10 by default) before unlocking.
Keyboard/mouse commands don't do anything. Confirm AutoHotkey is installed and running — Challenger Bot triggers AutoHotkey scripts for several commands rather than injecting key presses itself, so if AutoHotkey isn't running, those specific commands are silently inert.
!Word doesn't speak or change the trigger word.
VoiceMacro needs to be installed and configured with a valid path — the bot
restarts VoiceMacro as part of this command, so if VoiceMacro isn't installed
at all, the command has nothing to restart.
The OAuth step fails or times out. Make sure you're approving the authorization request from the same Twitch account that owns the channel you want the bot to run in — authorizing from a moderator or viewer account instead of the broadcaster account is the most common cause of this failing silently.