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Friends

The Friends subsystem provides access to the Steam friends list and related social information, allowing you to query friend identities, online state, relationships, and in-game activity.

This subsystem exposes read-only access to Steam friends data and simple interaction helpers, making it suitable for social features such as friend lists, online indicators, party systems, and lightweight invite flows.

Capabilities

  • Retrieve the full Steam friends list asynchronously.
  • Query the total number of friends and access friends by index.
  • Retrieve friend information by Steam user ID.
  • Check the relationship between the local user and another Steam user.
  • Determine whether a friend is currently online.
  • Query the game and lobby a friend is currently in.
  • Send direct game invites to friends using a connect string.

Important Notes

  • Friends data is provided by Steam and depends on the availability of persona information.
  • Some information may be unavailable for users who are not friends or whose privacy settings restrict access.
  • Sending game invites does not open the Steam overlay and relies on a valid connect string provided by the game.
  • The subsystem does not manage parties or networking logic; it only exposes Steam social data and invite helpers.