ASF-AutoIdle

An ArchiSteamFarm plugin that auto-detects every game on your Steam account and idles them in rotating batches of 32 (Steam's per-account cap), cycling through your whole library so each game accumulates roughly equal playtime over time.

No Steam Web API key. No game IDs to enter. Drop the DLL in plugins/, set "AutoIdle": { "Enabled": true } in your bot config, restart ASF.

Features

• Plug-and-play library discovery - uses the bot's authenticated IPlayerService.GetOwnedGames (default) or the wider dynamicstore endpoint (every AppID the account has access to, including unplayed F2P).
• Round-robin batch picking - strict cycle ordering, not random. Every game in the eligible pool is played at least once before any game is re-played. Persisted queue position survives restarts.
• Pool-sweep tracking - idleshow shows X/N played progress through the current sweep, plus an ETA for completion based on batch size and rotation interval. Pool sweeps completed (all-time) counter.
• Coexist with ASF's card farmer - AllowCardFarming defaults to true. When ASF is actively farming a card, AutoIdle yields the play slot. When farming clears, AutoIdle silently resumes the same batch. Set false if you want AutoIdle to permanently own the slot (the original PauseCardFarming=true behaviour).
• Heartbeat re-assert every 30 s - Steam occasionally drops or overrides a Play(batch) call (e.g. after a disconnect/reconnect storm, after ASF's card farmer kicks in/out, after FreePackages claims something). AutoIdle silently re-asserts the current batch every 30 s so the worst-case "looks idling but actually playing nothing" window is bounded at 30 s.
• Cross-plugin coordination - listens for idlepause / idleresume from siblings (e.g. ASF-AutoAchievement) so they can take exclusive control of the play slot during their own work. The timer pauses too - the original batch resumes with the same time remaining instead of restarting the 60-min interval.
• 2-hour pause failsafe - if a sibling plugin crashes mid-pause without sending idleresume, AutoIdle auto-clears the pause after 2 h so the bot never sits idle forever.
• Whitelist + blacklist - both via JSON config and via runtime commands. Whitelist games always go in the batch (reducing dynamic capacity); blacklist games are never played.
• User game detection - if you launch a Steam game on your PC, the bot loses its play slot. AutoIdle detects IsPlayingPossible=false and pauses idle. When you close the game, it re-asserts the current batch within 30 s.
• Per-rotation pool refresh - re-fetches your library on every rotation tick (~1 s API call). New games appear in the pool within one rotation interval; command-triggered restarts (iadd/iblock/etc.) skip the duplicate fetch via a 30 s back-to-back guard.
• Per-game time tracking - every batch's elapsed time is credited to each game. idlestats shows session + all-time totals, sorted by all-time desc. Persisted.
• Pause attribution - idlestats shows how much time was spent paused by each external source (e.g. AutoAchievement) for both the current session and all-time.
• Plugin uptime tracking - per-session and total across all sessions, persisted across restarts.
• Live config reload - edit a bot's JSON config and ASF re-runs OnBotInitModules; the plugin restarts that bot's rotation transparently when relevant fields change.

Install

1. Download ASF-AutoIdle.dll from the latest release (or build from source).
2. Drop it into <your ASF folder>/plugins/ASF-AutoIdle/.
3. Add to any bot config under <ASF>/config/<BotName>.json, anywhere inside the outer { ... }:

   "AutoIdle": { "Enabled": true }

4. Restart ASF.

You should see in the log:

ASF-AutoIdle vX.Y.Z.0 loaded - every bot's library will be idled in rotating batches of 32.
<Bot> > AutoIdle: rotation loop started.
<Bot> > AutoIdle: profile owned-games returned N entries.
<Bot> > AutoIdle: now idling 32 game(s).
  Pool sweep: 32/N played, K until pool repeats, ~Xh to finish sweep (started 0s ago)

Configuration

Every key is optional. Defaults shown.

"AutoIdle": {
    "Enabled": true,
    "OnlyProfileGames": true,
    "MaxGamesAtOnce": 32,
    "RotationMinutes": 60,
    "InitialDelaySeconds": 30,
    "AllowCardFarming": true,
    "Blacklist": [],
    "Whitelist": []
}

Key	Type	Default	Effect
Enabled	bool	true if block exists	Master switch for that bot.
OnlyProfileGames	bool	true	true = use IPlayerService.GetOwnedGames (~hundreds of profile games). false = use store dynamicstore endpoint (~thousands; includes DLC, demos, unplayed F2P).
MaxGamesAtOnce	byte	32	Steam's hard cap is 32.
RotationMinutes	uint	60	How often to rotate to the next batch. Min enforced: 5.
InitialDelaySeconds	uint	30	Wait after login before first rotation. Skipped on command-triggered restarts.
AllowCardFarming	bool	true	When true, AutoIdle yields the play slot whenever ASF's card farmer is active (so cards still drop). When false, AutoIdle permanently pauses card farming for this bot and keeps the slot.
Blacklist	uint[]	[]	AppIDs never idled. Always wins over whitelist.
Whitelist	uint[]	[]	AppIDs always in every batch. Each takes one of the MaxGamesAtOnce slots, reducing dynamic capacity.

Backward compat: the old PauseCardFarming config key is still parsed and gets inverted into AllowCardFarming (PauseCardFarming=true → AllowCardFarming=false). Existing configs keep their previous behaviour without edits.

Opt-out

A bot config without an AutoIdle block is ignored entirely. Or set "AutoIdle": { "Enabled": false } to log the opt-out explicitly.

Runtime commands

Send these to a bot via ASF's command interface (web UI Commands tab, IPC, or a chat DM to the bot). Operator-level access is required. Pass the bot name as the first argument, or omit it to default to ASF's chosen bot.

Command	Aliases	What it does
idleshow [bot]	ishow, idlestatus	Status: pool size, batch capacity, pool sweep progress + ETA, sweeps completed, whitelist, blacklist, current batch, external pause / card-farming status.
idleadd [bot] <appid|name>	iadd	Add a game to the always-include whitelist.
idleremove [bot] <appid|name>	irm, iremove	Remove from whitelist.
idleblacklist [bot] <appid|name>	iblock, ibl	Add to never-play blacklist.
idleblacklistremove [bot] <appid|name>	iunblock, iblrm	Remove from blacklist.
idlerotation [bot] <minutes>	irot, iint, idleinterval	Change rotation interval (0 to clear override; min 5).
idlestats [bot] [N|all]	istats, istat	Per-game time tracking + total session/all-time + pause attribution.
idletoggle [bot]	itoggle	Toggle OnlyProfileGames (profile games vs dynamicstore).
idlecards [bot]	icards	Toggle AllowCardFarming (yield play slot to ASF card farmer vs own it permanently).
idlepause [bot] [source]	-	Sibling-plugin signal. Pauses the rotation. Source defaults to "an external plugin".
idleresume [bot]	-	Sibling-plugin signal. Clears the pause and resumes the previously-active batch with the remaining rotation timer carried over.
idlehelp	ihelp	Print the command list.

State changes (idleadd, idleblacklist, idlerotation, idletoggle, idlecards) restart the rotation immediately so changes take effect within seconds.

Persistence

Runtime state is saved per-bot in ASF's BotDatabase under the key ASF.AutoIdle.State. Survives ASF restarts. Includes:

• Persistent whitelist / blacklist additions
• OnlyProfileGames runtime override
• AllowCardFarming runtime override
• RotationMinutes runtime override
• All-time per-game playtime stats
• Rotation queue position (round-robin cycle survives restarts)
• Pool sweep progress + completed-sweeps counter + current sweep start time
• All-time external-pause durations per source (e.g. ASF-AutoAchievement)
• Plugin uptime baseline

JSON-config Whitelist/Blacklist are read on every OnBotInitModules and merged with the runtime persistent sets.

Sibling-plugin coordination

When ASF-AutoAchievement is installed and scans your library, it sends an idlepause ASF-AutoAchievement command to all bots. AutoIdle's handler:

1. Snapshots the current batch and remaining rotation time.
2. Drops the play state so AutoAchievement can take the slot for its scan.
3. Logs paused by ASF-AutoAchievement (plus (ASF card farmer is also active...) if applicable).

When AutoAchievement finishes, it sends idleresume. AutoIdle's handler:

1. Restarts the rotation loop with _resumeBatchOnNextRotation set.
2. New loop iteration picks up the saved batch, shifts sleepUntil and _lastRotationAt forward by the pause duration - so the rotation timer is effectively paused and the same batch finishes its full 60-minute window.

The 2-hour pause failsafe activates if idleresume never arrives (e.g. AutoAchievement crashed mid-scan), so the bot can't end up stuck silent indefinitely.

Build from source

Requires the .NET SDK matching your ArchiSteamFarm runtime TFM (currently net10.0 for ASF 6.3.x).

You also need ArchiSteamFarm.dll and SteamKit2.dll from the exact ASF release you intend to load the plugin into. Place them in a folder, then point ASF_DIR at it (or use the project's default sibling ASF/ folder).

# Linux / macOS
ASF_DIR=/path/to/ArchiSteamFarm dotnet publish src/ASF-AutoIdle.csproj -c Release -o ./publish

# Windows
$env:ASF_DIR = "C:\path\to\ArchiSteamFarm"
dotnet publish src\ASF-AutoIdle.csproj -c Release -o .\publish

The compiled ASF-AutoIdle.dll ends up in ./publish. Copy it into <ASF>/plugins/ASF-AutoIdle/.

Notes / gotchas

• Whitelist math - every whitelist entry takes one of the 32 batch slots, reducing dynamic capacity. With whitelist=4 and pool=570, a full sweep takes ceil(566/28) = 21 batches. idleshow makes this auditable via the Batch capacity: line.
• Small libraries - when pool_size ≤ MaxGamesAtOnce + 1, the round-robin can't avoid repeats within each batch (e.g. 33 games / 32 batch means 31 games carry over each rotation). The cycle still distributes playtime evenly across all games.
• "Account is limited" warning - Steam restriction. Limited bots can't drop cards. The plugin still idles games but trading cards won't appear.
• OnlineStatus - separate ASF setting. The plugin doesn't touch it. Playtime accrues regardless of online status.
• Free-to-play games (default mode) - IPlayerService.GetOwnedGames only returns F2P titles you've launched at least once. Set OnlyProfileGames: false to include all F2P your account has access to (~thousands of AppIDs, will include DLC/demos).

Troubleshooting

Plugin doesn't idle everything on my account / only a subset of my library shows up

If you want every product on the account to enter the rotation (not just the ones already on your public profile), the default discovery mode is too narrow. OnlyProfileGames: true uses Steam's IPlayerService.GetOwnedGames, which omits a bunch of stuff your account actually owns - unplayed F2P titles (Warzone, Apex Legends, PUBG, etc.), playtests, region-restricted apps, recently-claimed FreePackages additions before the profile catches up, and anything Steam decides not to expose through the profile-games endpoint. Same symptom in all those cases: library has N apps, plugin only sees a fraction.

Fix - add "OnlyProfileGames": false to the bot's AutoIdle block:

"AutoIdle": {
    "Enabled": true,
    "OnlyProfileGames": false
}

Then restart the bot, or send !idletoggle <botname> in the ASF chat to flip it at runtime.

Side effect: DLC, soundtracks and demos enter the rotation pool too. Filter them out with "Blacklist": [appid1, appid2, ...] if you don't want them taking batch slots.

License

MIT - see LICENSE.