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Protocol

Pokémon Showdown's protocol is relatively simple.

Pokémon Showdown is implemented in SockJS. SockJS is a compatibility layer over raw WebSocket, so you can actually connect to Pokémon Showdown directly using WebSocket:

ws://sim.smogon.com:8000/showdown/websocket
  or
wss://sim3.psim.us/showdown/websocket

Client implementations you might want to look at for reference include:

The official client logs protocol messages in the JavaScript console, so opening that (F12 in most browsers) can help tell you what's going on.

Client-to-server messages

Messages from the user to the server are in the form:

ROOMID|TEXT

ROOMID can optionally be left blank if unneeded (commands like /join lobby can be sent anywhere). Responses will be sent to a PM box with no username (so |/command is equivalent to |/pm &, /command).

TEXT can contain newlines, in which case it'll be treated the same way as if each line were sent to the room separately.

A partial list of available commands can be found with /help.

To log in, look at the documentation for the |challstr| server message.

Server-to-client messages

Messages from the server to the user are in the form:

>ROOMID
MESSAGE
MESSAGE
MESSAGE
...

>ROOMID and the newline after it can be omitted if the room is lobby or global. MESSAGE cannot start with >, so it's unambiguous whether or not >ROOMID has been omitted.

As for the payload: it's made of any number of blocks of data separated by newlines; empty lines should be ignored. In particular, it should be treated the same way whether or not it ends in a newline, and if the payload is empty, the entire message should be ignored.

If MESSAGE doesn't start with |, it should be shown directly in the room's log. Otherwise, it will be in the form:

|TYPE|DATA

For example:

|j| Some dude
|c|@Moderator|hi!
|c| Some dude|you suck and i hate you!
Some dude was banned by Moderator.
|l| Some dude
|b|battle-ou-12| Cool guy|@Moderator

This might be displayed as:

Some dude joined.
@Moderator: hi!
Some dude: you suck and i hate you!
Some dude was banned by Moderator.
Some dude left.
OU battle started between Cool guy and Moderator

For bandwidth reasons, five of the message types - chat, join, leave, name, and battle - are sometimes abbreviated to c, j, l, n, and b respectively. All other message types are written out in full so they should be easy to understand.

Four of these can be uppercase: J, L, N, and B, which are the equivalent of their lowercase versions, but are recommended not to be displayed inline because they happen too often. For instance, the main server gets around 5 joins/leaves a second, and showing that inline with chat would make it near-impossible to chat.

Server-to-client message types

USER = a user, the first character being their rank (users with no rank are represented by a space), and the rest of the string being their username.

Room initialization

|init|ROOMTYPE

The first message received from a room when you join it. ROOMTYPE is one of: chat or battle

|title|TITLE

TITLE is the title of the room. The title is not guaranteed to resemble the room ID; for instance, room battle-gen7uu-779767714 could have title Alice vs. Bob.

|users|USERLIST

USERLIST is a comma-separated list of USERs, sent from chat rooms when they're joined. Optionally, a USER can end in @ followed by a user status message. A STATUS starting in ! indicates the user is away.

Room messages

||MESSAGE or MESSAGE

We received a message MESSAGE, which should be displayed directly in the room's log.

|html|HTML

We received an HTML message, which should be sanitized and displayed directly in the room's log.

|uhtml|NAME|HTML

We recieved an HTML message (NAME) that can change what it's displaying, this is used in things like our Polls system, for example.

|uhtmlchange|NAME|HTML

Changes the HTML display of the |uhtml| message named (NAME).

|join|USER, |j|USER, or |J|USER

USER joined the room. Optionally, USER may be appended with @! to indicate that the user is away or busy.

|leave|USER, |l|USER, or |L|USER

USER left the room.

|name|USER|OLDID, |n|USER|OLDID, or |N|USER|OLDID

A user changed name to USER, and their previous userid was OLDID. Optionally, USER may be appended with @! to indicate that the user is away or busy.

|chat|USER|MESSAGE or |c|USER|MESSAGE

USER said MESSAGE. Note that MESSAGE can contain | characters, so you can't just split by | and take the fourth string.

If MESSAGE starts with /, it is a special message. For instance, /me TEXT or /announce TEXT or /uhtml HTML. A lot of these message types are abused to embed protocol messages in PMs (for instance, /uhtml is a stopgap before the client is rewritten to support |uhtml| etc in PMs).

If the server wants clients to actually render a message starting with /, it will send a message starting with // (exactly like how users need to send those messages).

|notify|TITLE|MESSAGE

Send a notification with TITLE and MESSAGE (usually, TITLE will be bold, and MESSAGE is optional).

|notify|TITLE|MESSAGE|HIGHLIGHTTOKEN

Send a notification as above, but only if the user would be notified by a chat message containing HIGHLIGHTTOKEN (i.e. if HIGHLIGHTTOKEN contains words added to /highlight, or their username by default.)

|:|TIMESTAMP

|c:|TIMESTAMP|USER|MESSAGE

c: is pretty much the same as c, but also comes with a UNIX timestamp; (the number of seconds since 1970). This is used for accurate timestamps in chat logs.

: is the current time according to the server, so that times can be adjusted and reported in the local time in the case of a discrepancy.

The exact fate of this command is uncertain - it may or may not be replaced with a more generalized way to transmit timestamps at some point.

|battle|ROOMID|USER1|USER2 or |b|ROOMID|USER1|USER2

A battle started between USER1 and USER2, and the battle room has ID ROOMID.

Global messages

|popup|MESSAGE

Show the user a popup containing MESSAGE. || denotes a newline in the popup.

|pm|SENDER|RECEIVER|MESSAGE

A PM was sent from SENDER to RECEIVER containing the message MESSAGE.

|usercount|USERCOUNT

USERCOUNT is the number of users on the server.

|nametaken|USERNAME|MESSAGE

You tried to change your username to USERNAME but it failed for the reason described in MESSAGE.

|challstr|CHALLSTR

You just connected to the server, and we're giving you some information you'll need to log in.

If you're already logged in and have session cookies, you can make an HTTP GET request to https://play.pokemonshowdown.com/api/upkeep?challstr=CHALLSTR

Otherwise, you'll need to make an HTTP POST request to https://play.pokemonshowdown.com/api/login with the data name=USERNAME&pass=PASSWORD&challstr=CHALLSTR

USERNAME is your username and PASSWORD is your password, and CHALLSTR is the value you got from |challstr|. Note that CHALLSTR contains | characters. (Also feel free to make the request to https:// if your client supports it.)

Either way, the response will start with ] and be followed by a JSON object which we'll call data.

Finish logging in (or renaming) by sending: /trn USERNAME,0,ASSERTION where USERNAME is your desired username and ASSERTION is data.assertion.

|updateuser|USER|NAMED|AVATAR|SETTINGS

Your name, avatar or settings were successfully changed. Your rank and username are now USER. Optionally, USER may be appended with @! to indicate that you are away or busy.NAMED will be 0 if you are a guest or 1 otherwise. Your avatar is now AVATAR. SETTINGS is a JSON object representing the current state of various user settings.

|formats|FORMATSLIST

This server supports the formats specified in FORMATSLIST. FORMATSLIST is a |-separated list of FORMATs. FORMAT is a format name with one or more of these suffixes: ,# if the format uses random teams, ,, if the format is only available for searching, and , if the format is only available for challenging. Sections are separated by two vertical bars with the number of the column of that section prefixed by , in it. After that follows the name of the section and another vertical bar.

|updatesearch|JSON

JSON is a JSON object representing the current state of what battles the user is currently searching for.

|updatechallenges|JSON

JSON is a JSON object representing the current state of who the user is challenging and who is challenging the user.

|queryresponse|QUERYTYPE|JSON

JSON is a JSON object representing containing the data that was requested with /query QUERYTYPE or /query QUERYTYPE DETAILS.

Possible queries include /query roomlist and /query userdetails USERNAME.

Tournament messages

|tournament|create|FORMAT|GENERATOR|PLAYERCAP

FORMAT is the name of the format in which each battle will be played. GENERATOR is either Elimination or Round Robin and describes the type of bracket that will be used. Elimination includes a prefix that denotes the number of times a player can lose before being eliminated (Single, Double, etc.). Round Robin includes the prefix Double if every matchup will battle twice. PLAYERCAP is a number representing the maximum amount of players that can join the tournament or 0 if no cap was specified.

|tournament|update|JSON

JSON is a JSON object representing the changes in the tournament since the last update you recieved or the start of the tournament. These include:

format: the tournament's custom name or the format being used
teambuilderFormat: the format being used; sent if a custom name was set
isStarted: whether or not the tournament has started
isJoined: whether or not you have joined the tournament
generator: the type of bracket being used by the tournament
playerCap: the player cap that was set or 0 if it was removed
bracketData: an object representing the current state of the bracket
challenges: a list of opponents that you can currently challenge
challengeBys: a list of opponents that can currently challenge you
challenged: the name of the opponent that has challenged you
challenging: the name of the opponent that you are challenging

|tournament|updateEnd

Signals the end of an update period.

|tournament|error|ERROR

An error of type ERROR occurred.

|tournament|forceend

The tournament was forcibly ended.

|tournament|join|USER

USER joined the tournament.

|tournament|leave|USER

USER left the tournament.

|tournament|replace|OLD|NEW

The player OLD has been replaced with NEW

|tournament|start|NUMPLAYERS

The tournament started with NUMPLAYERS participants.

|tournament|replace|USER1|USER2

USER1 was replaced by USER2.

|tournament|disqualify|USER

USER was disqualified from the tournament.

|tournament|battlestart|USER1|USER2|ROOMID

A tournament battle started between USER1 and USER2, and the battle room has ID ROOMID.

|tournament|battleend|USER1|USER2|RESULT|SCORE|RECORDED|ROOMID

The tournament battle between USER1 and USER2 in the battle room ROOMID ended. RESULT describes the outcome of the battle from USER1's perspective (win, loss, or draw). SCORE is an array of length 2 that denotes the number of Pokemon USER1 had left and the number of Pokemon USER2 had left. RECORDED will be fail if the battle ended in a draw and the bracket type does not support draws. Otherwise, it will be success.

|tournament|end|JSON

The tournament ended. JSON is a JSON object containing:

results: the name(s) of the winner(s) of the tournament
format: the tournament's custom name or the format that was used
generator: the type of bracket that was used by the tournament
bracketData: an object representing the final state of the bracket

|tournament|scouting|SETTING

Players are now either allowed or not allowed to join other tournament battles based on SETTING (allow or disallow).

|tournament|autostart|on|TIMEOUT

A timer was set for the tournament to auto-start in TIMEOUT seconds.

|tournament|autostart|off

The timer for the tournament to auto-start was turned off.

|tournament|autodq|on|TIMEOUT

A timer was set for the tournament to auto-disqualify inactive players every TIMEOUT seconds.

|tournament|autodq|off

The timer for the tournament to auto-disqualify inactive players was turned off.

|tournament|autodq|target|TIME

You have TIME seconds to make or accept a challenge, or else you will be disqualified for inactivity.

Battles

Playing battles

Battle rooms will have a mix of room messages and battle messages. Battle messages are documented in SIM-PROTOCOL.md.

To make decisions in battle, players should use the /choose command, also documented in SIM-PROTOCOL.md.

Starting battles through challenges

|updatechallenges|JSON

JSON is a JSON object representing the current state of who the user is challenging and who is challenging the user. You'll get this whenever challenges update (when you challenge someone, when you receive a challenge, when you or someone you challenged accepts/rejects/cancels a challenge).

JSON.challengesFrom will be a {userid: format} table of received challenges.

JSON.challengeTo will be a challenge if you're challenging someone, or null if you haven't.

If you are challenging someone, challengeTo will be in the format: {"to":"player1","format":"gen7randombattle"}.

To challenge someone, send:

/utm TEAM
/challenge USERNAME, FORMAT

To cancel a challenge you made to someone, send:

/cancelchallenge USERNAME

To reject a challenge you received from someone, send:

/reject USERNAME

To accept a challenge you received from someone, send:

/utm TEAM
/accept USERNAME

Teams are in packed format. TEAM can also be null, if the format doesn't require user-built teams, such as Random Battle.

Invalid teams will send a |popup| with validation errors, and the /accept or /challenge command won't take effect.

If the challenge is accepted, you will receive a room initialization message.

Starting battles through laddering

|updatesearch|JSON

JSON is a JSON object representing the current state of what battles the user is currently searching for. You'll get this whenever searches update (when you search, cancel a search, or you start or end a battle)

JSON.searching will be an array of format IDs you're currently searching for games in.

JSON.games will be a {roomid: title} table of games you're currently in. Note that this includes ALL games, so |updatesearch| will be sent when you start/end challenge battles, and even non-Pokémon games like Mafia.

To search for a battle against a random opponent, send:

/utm TEAM
/search FORMAT

Teams are in packed format (see "Team format" below). TEAM can also be null, if the format doesn't require user-built teams, such as Random Battle.

To cancel searching, send:

/cancelsearch

Team format

Pokémon Showdown always sends teams over the protocol in packed format. For details about how to convert and read this format, see sim/TEAMS.md.

If you're not using JavaScript and don't want to reimplement these conversions, Pokémon Showdown's command-line client can convert between packed teams and JSON using standard IO.