What Is Stream Chaining? How to Use It for Livestreams on StreamKite

Stream chaining is one of those features that sounds more complicated than it actually is. In plain terms: it lets one stream automatically trigger another to start the moment it stops. No manual switching, no watching the clock, no logging in to press a button at just the right time. One stream ends, and — after a short delay you set — the next one picks up right where it left off.

Think of it as a relay race for your streams. Stream A runs, hands off the baton, and Stream B takes over. You set the handoff rule once, and it runs itself every single time from then on.

What stream chaining actually solves

Without chaining, running a sequence of streams throughout the day means one of two things: you’re manually stopping one and starting the next at the right moment, or you’re relying purely on time-based schedules that don’t account for a stream ending early, crashing, or running longer than expected. Chaining solves this differently — it doesn’t care about the clock at all. It cares about what just happened to a specific stream, and reacts to that event directly.

That distinction matters more than it sounds. A schedule says “be live from 9am to 5pm.” A chain rule says “the moment this specific stream stops, for any reason, start that other one.” One is time-based, the other is event-based — and for content that naturally runs in a sequence, event-based is usually the better fit.

Where to find it: the Automation tab

Open the Power panel (the lightning-bolt icon on your dashboard) and go to the Automation tab. Stream chaining lives here alongside auto-recovery. You’ll see a simple form: a “From” slot, a “To” slot, and a delay in seconds.

Setting up your first chain, step by step

1. Pick the “From” slot. This is the stream that, when it stops or crashes, will trigger the next one.
2. Pick the “To” slot. This is the stream that should start automatically once the “From” slot stops.
3. Set the delay. This is the number of seconds to wait after the first stream stops before the second one starts — useful as a small buffer rather than an instant, jarring handoff.
4. Click Save Chain Rule. It immediately shows up in your chains list, active by default.

That’s the whole setup. From here, the rule runs quietly in the background — you don’t need to trigger anything manually.

What happens behind the scenes when a chain fires

The moment the “From” slot’s status changes to stopped or crashed, the system checks whether a chain rule is attached to it. If one is, and the “To” slot isn’t already live, it waits out your delay and then starts the “To” slot automatically — but only if that target slot actually has media uploaded and ready to go. You’ll see a notification the moment it fires, and it’s logged in the Alerts tab too, so there’s always a record of exactly when a handoff happened.

Chaining vs. scheduling — which one to use

These two features solve similar-sounding problems in different ways, and it’s worth being clear on when each one fits better:

• Use scheduling when your streams need to follow a fixed clock — “Stream A live 9am–1pm, Stream B live 1pm–6pm,” regardless of what either stream is actually doing.
• Use chaining when the sequence matters more than the exact time — “whenever the morning show ends, start the afternoon mix,” no matter what time that actually happens to be.

They’re not mutually exclusive either. A common setup is scheduling a stream to start at a fixed time each morning, then chaining it forward into a second and third stream so the rest of the day’s sequence takes care of itself.

Turning a chain rule on or off without deleting it

Every chain rule in your list has its own toggle switch. Flip it off if you need to temporarily disable a handoff — say, while you’re re-uploading media to the target slot — without losing the rule itself. Flip it back on whenever you’re ready and it picks up right where it left off.

A practical example

Say you run a 24/7 channel with two distinct content blocks: a morning talk-style loop and an evening music loop. Instead of scheduling both with fixed hours and hoping they line up cleanly, you could chain them — set the morning slot to hand off to the evening slot the moment it stops. If the morning loop finishes a little early one day, the evening block still starts right on cue instead of leaving a gap of dead air in between.

Frequently asked questions

What happens if the “From” stream is manually stopped by me, not because it crashed?
The chain still fires. It reacts to the stream reaching a stopped state, regardless of whether that happened automatically or because you clicked Stop yourself.

Can I chain more than two streams together?
Yes. Set up multiple chain rules — A to B, then B to C — and they’ll fire one after another as each stream in the sequence stops.

What if the target slot doesn’t have media uploaded yet?
The chain won’t fire. It specifically checks that the target slot has media ready before attempting to start it, so it won’t try to launch an empty stream.

Does chaining work across addon slots too?
Yes — you can chain between any combination of main plan slots and addon slots; there’s no separate system for either.

The short version

Stream chaining turns “remembering to switch streams” into “it just happens.” Set which stream hands off to which, add a small delay if you want one, and the sequence runs itself from there — no clock-watching required.