Yt - a Ruby client for the YouTube API
Yt helps you write apps that need to interact with YouTube.
The source code is available on GitHub and the documentation on RubyDoc.
After registering your app, you can run commands like:
channel = Yt::Channel.new id: 'UCxO1tY8h1AhOz0T4ENwmpow'
channel.title
channel.public?
channel.videos.count
video = Yt::Video.new id: 'jNQXAC9IVRw'
video.title
video.comment_count
video.hd?
video.annotations.count
video.comment_threads
video.comment_threads.take(99).map(&:author_display_name)
The full documentation is available at rubydoc.info.
How to install
To install on your system, run
gem install yt
To use inside a bundled Ruby project, add this line to the Gemfile:
gem 'yt', '~> 0.32.0'
Since the gem follows Semantic Versioning,
indicating the full version in your Gemfile (~> major.minor.patch)
guarantees that your project won’t occur in any error when you bundle update
and a new version of Yt is released.
Available resources
Yt::Account
Check fullscreen.github.io/yt for the list of methods available for Yt::Account
.
Yt::ContentOwner
Use Yt::ContentOwner to:
- authenticate as a YouTube content owner
- list the channels partnered with a YouTube content owner
- list the claims administered by the content owner
- list and delete the references administered by the content owner
- list the policies and policy rules administered by the content owner
- create assets
- list assets
content_owner = Yt::ContentOwner.new owner_name: 'CMSname', access_token: 'ya29.1.ABCDEFGHIJ'
content_owner.partnered_channels.count
content_owner.partnered_channels.map &:title
content_owner.partnered_channels.where(part: 'statistics').map &:subscriber_count
content_owner.claims.where(q: 'Fullscreen').count
content_owner.claims.first
content_owner.claims.first.video_id
content_owner.claims.first.status
reference = content_owner.references.where(asset_id: "ABCDEFG").first
reference.delete
content_owner.policies.first
content_owner.policies.first.name
content_owner.policies.first.rules.first
content_owner.policies.first.rules.first.action
content_owner.policies.first.rules.first.included_territories
content_owner.create_asset type: 'web'
content_owner.assets.first
content_owner.assets.first.id
content_owner.assets.first.title
content_owner.assets.first.type
content_owner.assets.first.custom_id
All the above methods require authentication (see below).
Yt::Channel
Check fullscreen.github.io/yt for the list of methods available for Yt::Channel
.
Yt::Video
Check fullscreen.github.io/yt for the list of methods available for Yt::Video
.
Yt::Playlist
Check fullscreen.github.io/yt for the list of methods available for Yt::Playlist
.
Yt::PlaylistItem
Check fullscreen.github.io/yt for the list of methods available for Yt::PlaylistItem
.
Use Yt::CommentThread to:
- Show details of a comment_thread.
Yt::CommentThread.new id: 'z13vsnnbwtv4sbnug232erczcmi3wzaug'
comment_thread.video_id
comment_thread.total_reply_count
comment_thread.can_reply?
comment_thread.public?
comment_thread.top_level_comment
comment_thread.text_display
comment_thread.like_count
comment_thread.updated_at
comment_thread.author_display_name
Use Yt::Comment to:
- Get details of a comment.
Yt::Comment.new id: 'z13vsnnbwtv4sbnug232erczcmi3wzaug'
comment.text_display
comment.author_display_name
comment.like_count
comment.updated_at
comment.parent_id
Yt::BulkReportJob
Use Yt::BulkReportJob to:
- Get details of a bulk report job.
content_owner = Yt::ContentOwner.new owner_name: 'CMSname', access_token: 'ya29.1.ABCDEFGHIJ'
bulk_report_job = content_owner.bulk_report_jobs.first
bulk_report_job.report_type_id
Yt::BulkReport
Use Yt::BulkReport to:
- Get details of a bulk report.
content_owner = Yt::ContentOwner.new owner_name: 'CMSname', access_token: 'ya29.1.ABCDEFGHIJ'
bulk_report_job = content_owner.bulk_report_jobs.first
bulk_report = bulk_report_job.bulk_reports.first
bulk_report.start_time
bulk_report.end_time
bulk_report.download_url
Yt::Collections::Videos
Use Yt::Collections::Videos to:
videos = Yt::Collections::Videos.new
videos.where(order: 'viewCount').first.title
videos.where(q: 'Fullscreen CreatorPlatform', safe_search: 'none').size
videos.where(chart: 'mostPopular', video_category_id: 44).first.title
videos.where(id: 'jNQXAC9IVRw,invalid').map(&:title)
The methods above do not require authentication.
Yt::Annotation
Check fullscreen.github.io/yt for the list of methods available for Yt::Annotation
.
Yt::MatchPolicy
Use Yt::MatchPolicy to:
- update the policy used by an asset
content_owner = Yt::ContentOwner.new owner_name: 'CMSname', access_token: 'ya29.1.ABCDEFGHIJ'
match_policy = Yt::MatchPolicy.new asset_id: 'ABCD12345678', auth: content_owner
match_policy.update policy_id: 'aBcdEF6g-HJ'
Yt::Asset
Use Yt::Asset to:
- read the ownership of an asset
- update the attributes of an asset
content_owner = Yt::ContentOwner.new owner_name: 'CMSname', access_token: 'ya29.1.ABCDEFGHIJ'
asset = Yt::Asset.new id: 'ABCD12345678', auth: content_owner
asset.ownership
asset.ownership.obtain!
asset.general_owners.first.owner
asset.general_owners.first.everywhere?
asset.ownership.release!
asset.update metadata_mine: {notes: 'Some notes'}
- to retrieve metadata for an asset (e.g. title, notes, description, custom_id)
content_owner = Yt::ContentOwner.new(...)
asset = content_owner.assets.where(id: 'A969176766549462', fetch_metadata: 'mine').first
asset.metadata_mine.title
asset = content_owner.assets.where(id: 'A969176766549462', fetch_metadata: 'effective').first
asset.metadata_effective.title
asset = content_owner.assets.where(id: 'A125058570526569', fetch_ownership: 'effective').first
asset.ownership_effective.general_owners.first.owner
content_owner.assets.where(labels: "campaign:cpiuwdz-8oc").size
content_owner.assets.where(labels: "campaign:cpiuwdz-8oc").first.title
Yt::Claim
Use Yt::Claim to:
- read the attributes of a claim
- view the history of a claim
- update the attributes of an claim
content_owner = Yt::ContentOwner.new owner_name: 'CMSname', access_token: 'ya29.1.ABCDEFGHIJ'
claim = Yt::Claim.new id: 'ABCD12345678', auth: content_owner
claim.video_id
claim.asset_id
claim.content_type
claim.active?
claim.claim_history
claim.claim_history.events[0].type
claim.delete
data = {
is_manual_claim: true,
content_type: 'audiovisual',
asset_id: 'A123123123123123',
policy: { id: 'S123123123123123' },
video_id: 'myvIdeoIdYT',
match_info: {
match_segments: [
{
manual_segment: {
start: '00:00:20.000',
finish: '00:01:20.000'
}
},
{
manual_segment: {
start: '00:02:30.000',
finish: '00:03:50.000'
}
}
]
}
}
content_owner.claims.insert(data)
The methods above require to be authenticated as the video’s content owner (see below).
Yt::Ownership
Use Yt::Ownership to:
- update the ownership of an asset
content_owner = Yt::ContentOwner.new owner_name: 'CMSname', access_token: 'ya29.1.ABCDEFGHIJ'
ownership = Yt::Ownership.new asset_id: 'ABCD12345678', auth: $content_owner
new_general_owner_attrs = {ratio: 100, owner: 'CMSname', type: 'include', territories: ['US', 'CA']}
ownership.update general: [new_general_owner_attrs]
The methods above require to be authenticated as the video’s content owner (see below).
Yt::AdvertisingOptionsSet
Use Yt::AdvertisingOptionsSet to:
- update the advertising settings of a video
content_owner = Yt::ContentOwner.new owner_name: 'CMSname', access_token: 'ya29.1.ABCDEFGHIJ'
ad_options = Yt::AdvertisingOptionsSet.new video_id: 'jNQXAC9IVRw', auth: $content_owner
ad_options.update ad_formats: %w(standard_instream long)
The methods above require to be authenticated as the video’s content owner (see below).
Instrumentation
Yt leverages Active Support Instrumentation to provide a hook which developers can use to be notified when HTTP requests to YouTube are made. This hook may be used to track the number of requests over time, monitor quota usage, provide an audit trail, or track how long a specific request takes to complete.
Subscribe to the request.yt
notification within your application:
ActiveSupport::Notifications.subscribe 'request.yt' do |*args|
event = ActiveSupport::Notifications::Event.new(*args)
event.payload[:request_uri]
event.payload[:method]
event.payload[:response]
event.end
event.duration
end
Configuring your app
In order to use Yt you must register your app in the Google Developers Console.
If you don’t have a registered app, browse to the console and select "Create Project":
When your project is ready, select APIs & Auth in the menu and individually enable Google+, YouTube Analytics and YouTube Data API:
The next step is to create an API key. Depending on the nature of your app, you should pick one of the following strategies.
Apps that do not require user interactions
If you are building a read-only app that fetches public data from YouTube, then
all you need is a Public API access.
Click on "Create new Key" in the Public API section and select "Server Key":
Once the key for server application is created, copy the API key and add it
to your code with the following snippet of code (replacing with your own key):
Yt.configure do |config|
config.api_key = 'AIzaSyAO8dXpvZcaP2XSDFBD91H8yQ'
end
Remember: this kind of app is not allowed to perform any destructive operation,
so you won’t be able to like a video, subscribe to a channel or delete a
playlist from a specific account. You will only be able to retrieve read-only
data.
Web apps that require user interactions
If you are building a web app that manages YouTube accounts, you need the
owner of each account to authorize your app. There are three scenarios:
Scenario 1. If you already have the account’s access token, then you are ready to go.
Just pass that access token to the account initializer, such as:
account = Yt::Account.new access_token: 'ya29.1.ABCDEFGHIJ'
account.email
account.videos
Scenario 2. If you don’t have the account’s access token, but you have the
refresh token, then it’s almost as easy.
In the Google Developers Console,
find the web application that was used to obtain the refresh token, copy the
Client ID and Client secret and add them to you code with the following snippet
of code (replacing with your own keys):
Yt.configure do |config|
config.client_id = '1234567890.apps.googleusercontent.com'
config.client_secret = '1234567890'
end
Then you can manage a YouTube account by passing the refresh token to the
account initializer, such as:
account = Yt::Account.new refresh_token: '1/1234567890'
account.email
account.videos
Scenario 3. If you don’t have any account’s token, then you can get one by
having the user authorize your app through the Google OAuth page.
In the Google Developers Console,
click on "Create new Client ID" in the OAuth section and select "Web application":
Fill the "Authorized Redirect URI" textarea with the URL of your app where you
want to redirect users after they authorize their YouTube account.
Once the Client ID for web application is created, copy the Client ID and secret
and add them to your code with the following snippet of code (replacing with your own keys):
Yt.configure do |config|
config.client_id = '49781862760-4t610gtk35462g.apps.googleusercontent.com'
config.client_secret = 'NtFHjZkJcwYZDfYVz9mp8skz9'
end
Finally, in your web app, add a link to the URL generated by running
Yt::Account.new(scopes: scopes, redirect_uri: redirect_uri).authentication_url
where redirect_uri
is the URL you entered in the form above, and scopes
is
the list of YouTube scopes you want the user to authorize. Depending on the
nature of your app, you can pick one or more among youtube
, youtube.readonly
userinfo.email
.
Every user who authorizes your app will be redirected to the redirect_uri
with an extra code
parameter that looks something like 4/Ja60jJ7_Kw0
.
Just pass the code to the following method to authenticate and initialize the account:
account = Yt::Account.new authorization_code: '4/Ja60jJ7_Kw0', redirect_uri: redirect_uri
account.email
account.videos
Configuring with environment variables
As an alternative to the approach above, you can configure your app with
variables. Setting the following environment variables:
export YT_CLIENT_ID="1234567890.apps.googleusercontent.com"
export YT_CLIENT_SECRET="1234567890"
export YT_API_KEY="123456789012345678901234567890"
is equivalent to configuring your app with the initializer:
Yt.configure do |config|
config.client_id = '1234567890.apps.googleusercontent.com'
config.client_secret = '1234567890'
config.api_key = '123456789012345678901234567890'
end
so use the approach that you prefer.
If a variable is set in both places, then Yt.configure
takes precedence.
How to test
To run tests:
rspec
We recommend RSpec >= 3.8.
Yt comes with two different sets of tests:
- Unit tests in
spec/models
, spec/collections
and spec/errors
- Legacy integration tests in
spec/requests
Coming soon will be a new set of high-level integration tests.
Integration tests are recorded with VCR. Some of the tests refer to
fixture data that an arbitrary account may not have access to. If you
need to modify one of these tests or re-record the cassette, we'd
suggest working against your own version of the testing setup. Then in
your pull request, we can help canonize your test/fixtures.
Some of the integration tests require authentication. These can be set
with the following environment variables:
YT_TEST_CLIENT_ID
YT_TEST_CLIENT_SECRET
YT_TEST_API_KEY
YT_TEST_REFRESH_TOKEN
How to release new versions
If you are a manager of this project, remember to upgrade the Yt gem
whenever a new feature is added or a bug gets fixed.
Make sure all the tests are passing on Travis CI,
document the changes in CHANGELOG.md and README.md, bump the version, then run
rake release
Remember that the yt gem follows Semantic Versioning.
Any new release that is fully backward-compatible should bump the patch version (0.0.x).
Any new version that breaks compatibility should bump the minor version (0.x.0)
How to contribute
Yt needs your support!
The goal of Yt is to provide a Ruby interface for all the methods exposed by
the YouTube Data API (v3) and by
the YouTube Analytics API.
If you find that a method is missing, fork the project, add the missing code,
write the appropriate tests, then submit a pull request, and it will gladly
be merged!