Discord Rich Presence setup guide

[ellie-gray]

There are two main methods for setting up Discord Rich Presence using nxapi: using your own secondary account, or using the presence API, which you can set up via nxapi-auth.

	Local	Presence API
Ease of setup	Varies	Easy
Requires secondary account	Yes	No
Use for Discord Rich Presence	Yes	Yes
Use on your website, GitHub, etc	No	Yes
Extended data for Splatoon 3	Requires Nintendo Switch Online membership on secondary account	Yes*

_{* nxapi-auth will currently assign access to the presence API without SplatNet 3 access. You can request presence enrolment in #presence-server (invite) instead to access Splatoon 3 data; do not start presence setup on nxapi-auth.}

For either method, firstly download and install nxapi’s Electron app:

• macOS and Linux: https://gitlab.fancy.org.uk/samuel/nxapi/-/jobs/artifacts/main/browse/app?job=build-app
• Windows: https://gitlab.fancy.org.uk/samuel/nxapi/-/jobs/artifacts/main/browse/app?job=build-windows

Also, make sure you have the desktop Discord app installed. When using Discord in a web browser, it can’t set up the IPC socket used by nxapi and other apps for Rich Presence.

Additionally, if you’re using a Linux-based OS, make sure you’re not using a sandboxed version of Discord or nxapi as this will also prevent communication. snap packages are always sandboxed and cannot be used with Discord Rich Presence. The Flatpak package of Discord can be used, but requires additional setup.

Once you've installed nxapi, you can sign in with your main Nintendo Account if you'd like to access friend and game-specific service features, but this isn't necessary for Discord presence.

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Locally, using a secondary account

1. Set up an additional Nintendo Account

If you already have an additional Nintendo Account, you can use this and skip this step.

To create an additional Nintendo Account, you’ll either need another email address, or, you can create a supervised/child account in your family group.

• If you don’t have a family group and your main account’s country is set to anything other than United States, or you’re the admin of your family group and have an extra space, adding a supervised/child account is the easiest and means the additional account will have a Nintendo Switch Online membership, necessary for accessing SplatNet 3, if you already have a family membership.
• Otherwise, create a new Nintendo Account with a new email address. You can probably use a delimiter, usually +, after the first part of your usual email address, then any label you like, depending on your email provider (e.g. me+nintendo-switch-presence@example.com). iCloud (Hide My Email) and Proton Mail (Proton Pass/SimpleLogin) also include unique email aliases with paid plans.

Sign in to the new Nintendo Account on your console, and add your main account as a friend.

If you want to show additional data for Splatoon 3, launch the game on the secondary account. You don’t need to play an online battle or even start the tutorial, you just need to select a Splatfest region (ideally, the same as your main account). If the console is offline when you first launch the game you’ll have to complete the tutorial and enter the lobby to try again.

Once the account is set up, and has SplatNet 3 access if necessary, you can delete the user from your console (but not the Nintendo Account).

2. Add the account to nxapi

Open nxapi, and press add account, then add Nintendo Switch Online account. Then, sign in with your secondary account.

You can add your main account as well if you’d like to, for example if you’d like to access SplatNet 3 on your computer.

Note

Sometimes the Nintendo Account sign in page doesn’t show correctly. If you have any issues signing in to the Nintendo Account webpage, you can also hold Shift while pressing add Nintendo Switch Online account to open it in your web browser.

3. Set up Discord Rich Presence

Press set up Discord Rich Presence on the left, and select "select an account that is friends with the account I want to share" in mode.

Then, select your secondary account (the account nxapi will use to fetch your presence), and then select your main account from the secondary account’s friend list.

Optionally, press the preferences button to customise how your presence will appear in Discord, and activate enhanced Splatoon 3 presence if your secondary account has access to SplatNet 3.

Press save to start updating your presence on Discord.

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Presence API, using nxapi-auth

1. Sign in to nxapi-auth

First, go to https://nxapi-auth.fancy.org.uk and sign in. You don’t have to use your Discord account to sign in; you can register with a passkey or security key instead if you’d prefer. You can always link additional Discord accounts and add more passkeys and security keys later.

2. Link your Nintendo Switch user

Press add on the main page and enter your Nintendo Switch friend code. You’ll then be asked to verify your account by setting your nickname to the generated verification code.

It may take a minute to update your nickname on Nintendo’s systems. Wait a minute before pressing verify. Don’t wait too long or leave the page though as this will cancel verification and you’ll get a new verification code.

When nxapi-auth has verified your account you can change your nickname back.

3. Presence API enrolment

Once your Nintendo Switch user is linked to nxapi-auth, it will show an option to set up presence API access. Press set up now.

Then, accept the friend request from the presence server user shown in nxapi-auth.

When you set up presence API access, nxapi-auth will also start recording your play activity. You can turn this off if you'd prefer to not have nxapi-auth record this.

Note

nxapi-auth will make your presence data public by default. It is not currently possible to make this private, however this would prevent nxapi accessing it to show in Discord.

Tip

You can also use the presence API to show your presence on your own website.

The presence API can also generate embeds showing your presence, and optionally friend code. nxapi-auth can generate HTML code that you can use on your website, and most websites that accept Markdown such as GitHub.

4. Set up Discord Rich Presence

In nxapi-auth, copy the presence URL for your Nintendo Switch user. Don't select event stream.

Then, go back to the app, press set up Discord Rich Presence on the left, and select "enter a URL that returns the presence data you want to share" in mode. Enter the presence URL in the field below.

Optionally, press the preferences button to customise how your presence will appear in Discord. The SplatNet 3 option won't do anything as you're using a presence URL - use the option in nxapi-auth when generating the URL to set if additional Splatoon 3 presence data is shown.

Press save to start updating your presence on Discord.

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(Notes for @ellie-gray:)

• Add screenshots!!