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 #=> "Fullscreen"
channel.public? #=> true
channel.comment_count #=> 773
channel.videos.count #=> 12

video = Yt::Video.new id: 'MESycYJytkU'
video.title #=> "Fullscreen Creator Platform"
video.comment_count #=> 308
video.hd? #=> true
video.annotations.count #=> 1

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', '~> 0.25.5'

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

# Content owners can be initialized with access token, refresh token or an authorization code
content_owner = Yt::ContentOwner.new owner_name: 'CMSname', access_token: 'ya29.1.ABCDEFGHIJ'

content_owner.partnered_channels.count #=> 12
content_owner.partnered_channels.map &:title #=> ["Fullscreen", "Best of Fullscreen", ...]
content_owner.partnered_channels.where(part: 'statistics').map &:subscriber_count #=> [136925, 56945, ...]

content_owner.claims.where(q: 'Fullscreen').count #=> 24
content_owner.claims.first #=> #<Yt::Models::Claim @id=...>
content_owner.claims.first.video_id #=> 'MESycYJytkU'
content_owner.claims.first.status #=> "active"

reference = content_owner.references.where(asset_id: "ABCDEFG").first #=> #<Yt::Models::Reference @id=...>
reference.delete #=> true

content_owner.policies.first #=> #<Yt::Models::Policy @id=...>
content_owner.policies.first.name #=> "Track in all countries"
content_owner.policies.first.rules.first #=> #<Yt::Models::PolicyRule @id=...>
content_owner.policies.first.rules.first.action #=> "monetize"
content_owner.policies.first.rules.first.included_territories #=> ["US", "CA"]

content_owner.create_asset type: 'web' #=> #<Yt::Models::Asset @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.

Yt::Collections::Videos

Use Yt::Collections::Videos to:

• search for videos

videos = Yt::Collections::Videos.new
videos.where(order: 'viewCount').first.title #=>  "PSY - GANGNAM STYLE"
videos.where(q: 'Fullscreen CreatorPlatform', safe_search: 'none').size #=> 324
videos.where(chart: 'mostPopular', video_category_id: 44).first.title #=> "SINISTER - Trailer"
videos.where(id: 'MESycYJytkU,invalid').map(&:title) #=> ["Fullscreen Creator Platform"]

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' #=> true

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 #=> #<Yt::Models::Ownership @general=...>
asset.ownership.obtain! #=> true
asset.general_owners.first.owner #=> 'CMSname'
asset.general_owners.first.everywhere? #=> true
asset.ownership.release! #=> true

asset.update metadata_mine: {notes: 'Some notes'} #=> true

• 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 #=> "Master Final   Neu La Anh Fix"

asset = content_owner.assets.where(id: 'A969176766549462', fetch_metadata: 'effective').first
asset.metadata_effective.title #=> "Neu la anh" (different due to ownership conflicts)

• to search for an asset

content_owner.assets.where(labels: "campaign:cpiuwdz-8oc").size #=> 417
content_owner.assets.where(labels: "campaign:cpiuwdz-8oc").first.title #=> "Whoomp! (Supadupafly) (Xxl Hip House Mix)"

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 #=> 'va141cJga2'
claim.asset_id #=> 'A1234'
claim.content_type #=> 'audiovisual'
claim.active? #=> true

claim.claim_history #=> #<Yt::Models::ClaimHistory ...>
claim.claim_history.events[0].type #=> "claim_create"

claim.delete #=> true

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: 'MESycYJytkU', auth: $content_owner
ad_options.update ad_formats: %w(standard_instream long) #=> true

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] #=> #<URI::HTTPS URL:https://www.googleapis.com/youtube/v3/channels?id=UCxO1tY8h1AhOz0T4ENwmpow&part=snippet>
  event.payload[:method] #=> :get
  event.payload[:response] #=> #<Net::HTTPOK 200 OK readbody=true>

  event.end #=> 2014-08-22 16:57:17 -0700
  event.duration #=> 141.867 (ms)
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 #=> (retrieves the account’s e-mail address)
account.videos #=> (lists a video to an account’s playlist)

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 #=> (retrieves the account’s e-mail address)
account.videos #=> (lists a video to an account’s playlist)

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 #=> (retrieves the account’s e-mail address)
account.videos #=> (lists a video to an account’s playlist)

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.

Why you should use Yt…

… and not youtube_it? Because youtube_it does not support YouTube API V3, and the YouTube API V2 has been officially deprecated as of March 4, 2014. If you need help upgrading your code, check YOUTUBE_IT.md, a step-by-step comparison between youtube_it and Yt to make upgrade easier.

… and not Google Api Client? Because Google Api Client is poorly coded, poorly documented and adds many dependencies, bloating the size of your project.

… and not your own code? Because Yt is fully tested, well documented, has few dependencies and helps you forget about the burden of dealing with Google API!

How to test

Yt comes with two different sets of tests:

1. tests in spec/models, spec/collections and spec/errors do not hit the YouTube API
2. tests in spec/requests hit the YouTube API and require authentication

The reason why some tests actually hit the YouTube API is because they are meant to really integrate Yt with YouTube. YouTube API is not exactly the most reliable API out there, so we need to make sure that the responses match the documentation.

You don’t have to run all the tests every time you change code. Travis CI is already set up to do this for when whenever you push a branch or create a pull request for this project.

To only run tests against models, collections and errors (which do not hit the API), type:

rspec spec/models spec/collections spec/errors

To also run live-tests against the YouTube API, type:

rspec

This will fail unless you have set up a test YouTube application and some tests YouTube accounts to hit the API. Once again, you probably don’t need this, since Travis CI already takes care of running this kind of tests.

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 HISTORY.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!