As it stands currently today, whether you are building a large scale bot to connect to multiple channels, that is always on (think Streamlabs, StreamElements, etc), or a small bot specific for your channel, or perhaps somewhere in between, the only supported way to connect is via the channel name, which is tied directly to the Twitch username.

The problem that is faced is when one of those connected channel's broadcaster decide to change their username, thus changing the channel name as well, since now what the bot is listening for data on is non-existent. The way this is managed today is by utilizing webhooks to listen for user changes, and the moment a username has been updated, the webhook is notified, and the bot must sever the previous connection and establish a new connection to the new username.

What i propose is providing the capability to also allow connections to a channel based on the Broadcaster ID, being a numeric value that never changes over the lifetime of the twitch account's existence. By allowing this capability, an IRC bot could connect in via the ID, and stay connected, regardless of name changes, which saves on resources from both the bot and Twitch's side.

Good thing is that the data needed (i.e. the broadcaster ID) is already available on the helix endpoints for channels and users, so no modifications to the API would be needed!

The changes (from the outside looking in) would entail accepting a numeric based ID for the connect call, then updates to the IRC infrastructure to support it. I'm certain there could be a bit of finesse in how the data is translated to make the footprint minimal.

Overall gains: Ease of IRC bot management, less load on bot, less load on Twitch (no need for webhooks just for username changes)