Card idling
Idle owned games with trading card drops alongside hour boosting; sessions, API keys, and restart interval.
Card idling is an optional extra while you are hour boosting. Turn it on per Steam account under /gui → Config.
In simple terms
Steam drops trading cards for some games when you “play” them. With card idling enabled, the bot can rotate through games you own that still have card drops, alongside your normal boost setup, so you can earn cards while boosting hours.
It does not guarantee drops instantly—Steam has its own rules and timing.
What you need for it to work well
- Steam Web API key on the bot (
STEAM_WEB_API_KEYin the host’s.env): lets the bot ask Steam which games you own, so it can pick sensible card games. Without it, the bot may only use games you already saved for boosting. See README — Setup (host configuration). - Your account must be logged in through SHB with a valid session (same as boosting).
Your saved game list stays yours
Extra games used only for card drops are kept in memory for that session. Your saved App ID list in the database is not replaced by card-idling picks.
Brief disconnects about every 30 minutes
With card idling on, the bot fully restarts the Steam session on a timer (about every 30 minutes) so drops and related checks stay reliable. You may see a short offline blip on Steam when that happens.
Custom “now playing” text
If you set a custom game name, the bot tries not to overwrite it with card-idle game names—see Boosting and display.