SteamCMD JS Interface

Allows you to access and use SteamCMD via JavaScript

Note this uses ES2017 features, such as async. Please use Node >= 8.3. I have plans of adding compiled and uglified versions sometime in the future.

Basic Usage

1. Install the package

npm install steamcmd-interface

2. Import the class and create a new instance

const SteamCmd = require('steamcmd-interface')
const steamcmd = new SteamCmd()

3. Now you can use the instance to interact with SteamCMD. Like anonymously downloading the CS:GO dedicated server

// Downloads SteamCMD for the current platform and makes sure that it is usable.
await steamcmd.prep()
// Downloads CS:GO dedicated server to the default install directory.
const runObj = steamcmd.updateApp(740)

Changing the Binary and Install Directories

By default the SteamCMD binaries are downloaded to path.join(__dirname, 'steamcmd_bin', process.platform). So, for example, this would equal to: [Project dir]/node_modules/steamcmd-interface/steamcmd_bin/linux on a linux machine.

Similarly the install directory is set to path.join(__dirname, 'install_dir') by default.

It is recommended that you change these defaults, because downloading stuff into node_modules is bad practice. Also, I suspect that these directories may get deleted when you upgrade or uninstall this package.

You can change these directories by running:

// On construction
const steamcmd = new SteamCmd({
  binDir: `~/Downloads/steamcmd/bin`,
  installDir: `~/Downloads/steamcmd/apps`
})
// Or later on via a function call:
steamcmd.setOptions({
  binDir: `~/Downloads/steamcmd/bin`,
  installDir: `~/Downloads/steamcmd/apps`
})

Pro Tip: If you have the Steam client installed then you can set the install directory to the library directory of the client. This will cause Steam to recognise the app and you won't need to move files manually.

Downloading and Updating Apps

You can download or update a steam app by running updateApp(appId). For example:

const runObj = steamcmd.updateApp(740)

The above will download the CS:GO dedicated server to the default install directory.

The updateApp function returns a RunObj object. This contains two properties outputStream and killSteamCmd.

outputStream is a readable stream that returns the output of SteamCMD line by line. So if you want to log the output then you can do something like:

runObj.outputStream.on('data', data => { console.log(data) })
runObj.outputStream.on('error', err => { console.error(err) })
runObj.outputStream.on('close', exitCode => { console.log(exitCode) })

Practically this can be used for things like tracking the download progress of an app.

killSteamCmd is a function that, once called, will kill the SteamCMD process. This is currently the only way to stop a download. Don't worry, when you try to update the same app again then it will start the download there where it left off.

Setting Your Login Credentials

By default this package uses the anonymous account to login to Steam. You can change this by running:

// On construction
const steamcmd = new SteamCmd({
  username: 'test',
  password: '1234',
  steamGuardCode: 'XG29X'
})
// Or later via a funtion call
steamcmd.setOptions({
  username: 'test',
  password: '1234',
  steamGuardCode: 'XG29X'
})

If you do this then you have access to your entire Steam library.

Note 1 Your Steam Guard code will only get sent to you once you tried to login via your username and password. So you'll need to do something like this on the first login to SteamCMD:

const steamcmd = new SteamCmd({
  username: 'test',
  password: '1234'
})
await steamcmd.prep()
const runObj = steamcmd.updateApp(740)
runObj.outputStream.on('close', exitCode => {
  if(errorCode === SteamCmd.EXIT_CODES.STEAM_GUARD_CODE_REQUIRED) {
    // At this point SteamCMD ran and failed, because the Steam Guard code was
    // not set. So here you somehow need to provide it with the correct code and
    // it should work.
    steamcmd.setOptions({
      steamGuardCode: '[The code that was sent to you by Steam]'
    })
    // This works now!
    steamcmd.updateApp(740)
  }
})

Note 2 After you have successfully logged in then SteamCMD stores your credentials internally. So you don't need to specify a Steam Guard code each time.

Getting an Error Message For an Exit Code

Sometimes you may want to get a human-readable error message for a particular exit code. In this case simply use SteamCmd.getErrorMessage. For example:

const runObj = steamcmd.updateApp(740)
runObj.outputStream.on('close', exitCode => {
  if(errorCode !== SteamCmd.EXIT_CODES.NO_ERROR) {
    // Something went wrong, throw an error
    throw new Error(SteamCmd.getErrorMessage(exitCode))
  }
})

Running Custom Commands

It is possible to run your own custom commands using the run function. It expects an array of commands that it will run one after the next. It will quit the moment an error occurs. For example:

const commands = const commands = [
  steamcmd.getLoginStr(),
  `force_install_dir "${steamcmd.installDir}"`,
  'app_uninstall -complete 740'
]
const runObj = steamcmd.run(commands)

The above will login using the current credentials, set the install directory and completely uninstall CS:GO dedicated server.

For a list of all possible commands see this wiki entry or this github repo

Note The run command automatically adds @ShutdownOnFailedCommand 1 and @NoPromptForPassword 1 the the beginning of your list of commands. This is to prevent the SteamCMD process from hanging. If you want to over-write this then just add @ShutdownOnFailedCommand 0 and/or @NoPromptForPassword 0 to the beginning of your list of commands.

TODO

• Add better documentation with jsdoc
• Add automation tasks with something like gulp
• Add more tests
• Add compiled versions that support lesser versions of JS.
• Uglify the final code.