Twirp website screenshot

Twirp

Twirp is a simple RPC framework built on Protocol Buffers, created by Twitch, that generates routing and serialization code from Protobuf service definitions for Go and other languages. Similar to gRPC but runs on the standard library's net/http Server without custom HTTP server or transport implementations. Supports both binary Protobuf and JSON serialization, making debugging easy. Uses HTTP POST for all requests with URLs in the format /twirp/[Package].[Service]/[Method]. Protocol version 7 is the current stable version. Licensed under Apache 2.0.

Twirp publishes 1 API on the APIs.io network. Tagged areas include Protocol Buffers, RPC, Go, SDKs, and Open Source.

The Twirp catalog on APIs.io includes 1 JSON-LD context and 1 Spectral governance ruleset.

Twirp’s developer surface includes documentation and 9 more developer resources.

🌐 Visit website 📡 Source on GitHub
31.6/100 thin ▬ flat Agent 3/100 human only Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-08-05 · rubric v0.9.1
AccessFreemium
1 APIs
Protocol BuffersRPCGoSDKsOpen SourceProtobuf

Kin Score

Kin Score Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-08-05 · rubric v0.9.1
Composite quality — 31.6/100 · thin
Contract Quality 2.0 / 25
Developer Ergonomics 1.7 / 20
Commercial Clarity 7.9 / 20
Operational Transparency 4.8 / 13
Governance 8.3 / 12
Discoverability 6.9 / 10
Agent readiness — 3/100 · human only
Machine-Readable Contract 0 / 18
Agentic Access Contract 0 / 10
MCP Server 0 / 12
Machine-Readable Auth 0 / 10
Idempotency 0 / 9
Stable Error Semantics 0 / 8
Request/Response Examples 0 / 7
Rate-Limit Signaling 7 / 7
Typed Event Surface 0 / 6
Agent Skills 0 / 5
Well-Known Catalog 0 / 4
Consent & Bot Identity 0 / 3
A2A Agent Card 0 / 8
Dry-Run / Simulate Mode 0 / 4
Improve this rating by publishing the missing artifacts — every area above can be raised, and the full rubric is at apis.io/rating/. This rating is computed from github.com/api-evangelist/twirp: open an issue to ask a question, or submit a pull request to add artifacts. Want it done for you? Prioritized profiling — $2,500 →

APIs 1

Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.

Twirp RPC Framework

Twirp is a simple RPC framework with protobuf service definitions. Define your service in a .proto file and Twirp generates servers and clients implementing the Twirp wire proto...

Pricing Plans 1

Published pricing tiers and plan structures.

Twirp Plans Pricing

3 plans

PLANS

Rate Limits 1

Documented rate limits and quota policies.

Twirp Rate Limits

5 limits

RATE LIMITS

FinOps 1

Cost, billing, and metering signals for API financial operations.

Twirp Finops

FINOPS

Semantic Vocabularies 1

JSON-LD contexts and semantic vocabularies used across these APIs.

Twirp Context

0 classes · 5 properties

JSON-LD

Spectral Rules 1

Spectral governance rulesets for linting and validating these APIs.

Twirp API Rules

4 rules · 3 warnings 1 info

SPECTRAL

JSON Schema 1

Standalone JSON Schema definitions for this provider's data models.

Twirp Error

3 properties

JSON SCHEMA

JSON Structure 1

JSON Structure definitions describing this provider's data shapes.

Twirp Error Structure

0 properties

JSON STRUCTURE

Resources

Documentation 2

Reference material describing how the API behaves

Documentation
Documentation
 JSONSchema
JSONSchema

Design & Contract 2

Pagination, idempotency, versioning, errors, and events

JSONLD
JSONLD
 Vocabulary
Vocabulary

Build 2

SDKs, sample code, and the tooling you integrate with

GitHubOrganization
GitHubOrganization
 GitHubRepository
GitHubRepository

Commercial 1

Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use

License
License

Company 1

The organization behind the API

Website
Website

Other 2

Properties that don't map to a standard resource type

Wire Protocol
Wire Protocol
 Contributing
Contributing

Source (apis.yml)

apis.yml Raw ↑ 
aid: twirp
name: Twirp
description: Twirp is a simple RPC framework built on Protocol Buffers, created by Twitch, that generates routing and serialization
  code from Protobuf service definitions for Go and other languages. Similar to gRPC but runs on the standard library's net/http
  Server without custom HTTP server or transport implementations. Supports both binary Protobuf and JSON serialization, making
  debugging easy. Uses HTTP POST for all requests with URLs in the format /twirp/[Package].[Service]/[Method]. Protocol version
  7 is the current stable version. Licensed under Apache 2.0.
kind: contract
access: 3rd-Party
accessModel:
  pricing: freemium
  onboarding: unknown
  trial: false
  try_now: false
  public: false
  label: Freemium
  confidence: medium
  source:
  - plans
  generated: '2026-07-22'
  method: derived
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/twirp.png
tags:
- Protocol Buffers
- RPC
- Go
- SDKs
- Open Source
- Protobuf
created: '2026-03-27'
modified: '2026-05-03'
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/twirp/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
specificationVersion: '0.19'
apis:
- aid: twirp:twirp-framework
  name: Twirp RPC Framework
  description: 'Twirp is a simple RPC framework with protobuf service definitions. Define your service in a .proto file and
    Twirp generates servers and clients implementing the Twirp wire protocol. Services are exposed over HTTP using POST requests
    with paths in the form /twirp/[Package].[Service]/[Method]. Supports both Protobuf binary encoding (Content-Type: application/protobuf)
    and JSON encoding (Content-Type: application/json). Includes a Go runtime and protoc-gen-twirp code generator plugin.'
  humanURL: https://twitchtv.github.io/twirp/
  baseURL: https://twitchtv.github.io/twirp/
  tags:
  - Protocol Buffers
  - RPC
  - Go
  - Code Generation
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://twitchtv.github.io/twirp/docs/intro.html
  - type: GettingStarted
    url: https://twitchtv.github.io/twirp/docs/install.html
  - type: GitHub
    url: https://github.com/twitchtv/twirp
  - type: Wire Protocol
    url: https://github.com/twitchtv/twirp/blob/main/PROTOCOL.md
common:
- type: Website
  url: https://twitchtv.github.io/twirp/
- type: Documentation
  url: https://twitchtv.github.io/twirp/docs/intro.html
- type: GitHubOrganization
  url: https://github.com/twitchtv
- type: GitHubRepository
  url: https://github.com/twitchtv/twirp
- type: Wire Protocol
  url: https://github.com/twitchtv/twirp/blob/main/PROTOCOL.md
- type: License
  url: https://github.com/twitchtv/twirp/blob/main/LICENSE
- type: Contributing
  url: https://github.com/twitchtv/twirp/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md
- type: JSONSchema
  url: json-schema/twirp-error-schema.json
- type: JSONLD
  url: json-ld/twirp-context.jsonld
- type: Vocabulary
  url: vocabulary/twirp-vocabulary.yml
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com