Steam browser protocol

Commands

There are several commands available that interact with Steam. All of them open up Steam if it is not open. They can either be typed into a command box (Start-> Run) or through your browser's address bar.

• steam:%c This opens Steam with command line arguments. Replace %c with command line arguments found here: Steam Command Line Options
• steam://store/%id This opens up the store for the specified product, if no product is specified then the default one is opened. Replace %id with a Steam Applaunch ID.
• steam://backup/%id This opens up Steam's backup utility. If a product id is specified then the product is checkmarked automatically. Replace %id with a Steam Applaunch ID.
• steam://run/%id This opens a product. Replace %id with a Steam Applaunch ID.
• steam://updatenews/%id This opens the news about the latest updates for the specified product. Replace %id with a Steam Applaunch ID.
• steam://install/%id This installs a product. Replace %id with a Steam Applaunch ID.
• steam://preload/%id This preloads a product. Replace %id with a Steam Applaunch ID.
• steam://purchase/subscription/%id This opens up a dialog box to buy a subscription to a Steam product/service. None are available as of writing.
• steam://purchase/%id This opens a dialog box to buy a product from Steam. Replace %id with a Steam Applaunch ID
• steam://validate/%id This Validates the files within gcf's of the Applaunch ID you choose.
• steam://installaddon/%addon This installs the specified add-on. Example: steam://installaddon/halflifehd installs HL High-Def Pack
• steam://removeaddon/%addon This uninstalls the specified add-on. Example: steam://removeaddon/halflifehd uninstalls HL High-Def Pack
• steam://connect/<ip or dns name> This connects the user to the server specified by the IP or DNS name. Using this, you can connect to servers for third party mods without needing to know the mod's installation path.
  • Example: steam://connect/1.0.0.27:27015
  • Example: steam://connect/dns.server.com
• steam://runsafe/%id This resets CVARs of the application with Applaunch ID (i.e. 211 for SDK).
• steam://openurl/%url Opens URL in default web browser.

Ability

What can be done with these commands from a websites point of view? Its a pretty open and powerful system. A website link can start up steam and not only change any ConVar of a user, but it can also execute ConCommands like making a player join a specific server running a specific mod. It can even get the player to start up a dedicated server with a single click.

Here some examples: (the wiki doesnt support them as links so copy / paste them with quotationmarks into a new browser window)

steam:"-applaunch 70 -game "your_mod" +map "yourmap"" - This starts up Half-Life running your_mod and loading a map called yourmap.bsp.

steam:"-applaunch 320 -game "your_mod" +connect "76.184.78.81:27015"" - This starts up Half-Life 2 DM running your_mod and joining the server with the IP 76.184.78.81 on port 27015. It is recommended that you use the steam://connect/IP command instead - see above.

To view this browser based command system in action look at this server browser website and click on one of the servers.

Note:If you forget the closing quote on a steam:"%c" command, you will get an assertion failed error from Steam.exe/BootStrapperApp.cpp.

--Black Panther 07:31, 28 Jun 2005 (PDT) originally posted by --X2cube 05:23, 15 Nov 2004 on the hl2world wiki