Spotify playlist API

Public collaboration of our upcoming (web-based) playlist API during Music Hack Day Amsterdam, Apr 24 2010.

Feedback is welcome at feedback@spotify.com.

Abilities

• List playlists for a given user (there are different lists, e.g. "Regular", "Starred" etc.)
• Modify a list of playlists for a given user
  • Add a playlist
  • Remove a playlist
  • Reorder the list
• Create a new playlist
• Query a specific playlist
• Modify a specific playlist

Ideas & requests under consideration

• Requesting older versions e.g. stateless undo.
• Store arbitrary values (key-value style) in a playlist
• Embedded statistics (e.g. track popularity, subscribers, etc)
• Creating a "disconnected" playlist. i.e. one that is not yet present in a container of playlists
• Respond with CORS headers so web browsers can be used

Authentication

OAuth

A playlist entity

version         The version of the playlist in the Spotify system.
uri             The Spotify URI of the playlist (named "identifier" in XSPF)
title           Title of the playlist.
creator         Username of the user who created the playlist.
collaborative   Indicates if everyone can edit the contents (tracks) or not.
annotation      Free text description.
image           URL to the playlists image.
tracks          List of tracks (named "trackList" in XSPF)
  uri           The Spotify URI of the track (named "identifier" in XSPF).
  title           Name of the track.
  artists         Artist(s) performing the track (named "creator" in XSPF).
  album           Album on which the track appears.
  number          The track number on the album (named "trackNum" in XSPF).
  duration        Length of the track in milliseconds.
  starred         Indicates if the track is "starred" by the authenticated caller.

XSPF example

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<playlist xmlns="http://xspf.org/ns/0/" xmlns:sp="http://www.spotify.com/ns/music/1"
    version="1" sp:version="XYZ123">
  <identifier>spotify:user:smedjan:playlist:6welunS19b7RD9lodXrhuG</identifier>
  <title>Spotify playlist</title>
  <creator>smedjan</creator>
  <image>http://spotify.tld/path/to/image.jpg</image>
  <annotation>Playlist API example playlist</annotation>
  <extension application="http://spotify.com">
    <sp:meta collaborative="true" />
  </extension>
  <trackList>
    <track>
      <identifier>spotify:track:0v7T2Xu3kpHj1JiaOvt7gm</identifier>
      <title>Ghost Trail</title>
      <creator>Crookers</creator>
      <album>We Love Animals</album>
      <extension application="http://spotify.com">
        <sp:artist uri="spotify:artist:3o1cwVQfiDWafhYA02k13C" image="http://spotify.tld/path/to/image.jpg">Crookers</sp:artist>
        <sp:artist uri="spotify:artist:2bYg3DwtzQ5LWztZHwbWb3" image="http://spotify.tld/path/to/image.jpg">Mixhell</sp:artist>
        ...
        <sp:album uri="spotify:album:5mW7HUDpbEaVneZBd70FBt" image="http://spotify.tld/path/to/image.jpg">We Love Animals</sp:album>
        <sp:meta starred="true" />
      </extension>
    </track>
    ...
  </trackList>
</playlist>

JSON example

{
  "version": "XYZ123",
  "uri": "spotify:user:smedjan:playlist:6welunS19b7RD9lodXrhuG",
  "title": "Spotify playlist",
  "creator": "smedjan",
  "image": "http://spotify.tld/path/to/image.jpg",
  "annotation": "Playlist API example playlist",
  "collaborative": true,
  "tracks": [
    {
      "uri": "spotify:track:0v7T2Xu3kpHj1JiaOvt7gm",
      "title": "Ghost Trail",
      "artists": [
        {
          "uri": "spotify:artist:3o1cwVQfiDWafhYA02k13C",
          "title": "Crookers",
          "image": "http://spotify.tld/path/to/image.jpg"
        },
        {
          "uri": "spotify:artist:2bYg3DwtzQ5LWztZHwbWb3",
          "title": "Maxhell",
          "image": "http://spotify.tld/path/to/image.jpg"
        },
        ...
      ],
      "album": {
        "uri": "spotify:album:5mW7HUDpbEaVneZBd70FBt",
        "title": "We Love Animals",
        "image": "http://spotify.tld/path/to/image.jpg"
      },
      "number": 3,
      "duration": 710000,
      "starred": true,
    },
    ...
  ],
}

Further called {playlist}.

Outline

These are the currently available requests (we're still in the progress of determining what the base URL should look like).

GET /user/{username}/playlists/regular -> ordered list of {playlist}s
GET /user/{username}/playlists/special/starred -> ordered list of {playlist}s
GET /user/{username}/playlists/special/purchases -> ordered list of {playlist}s
GET /playlist/{id} -> {playlist}

POST /playlist <- {playlist}
POST /playlist/{id}/add?index <- list of track URIs
POST /playlist/{id}/move?src-index&count&dst-index
POST /playlist/{id}/remove?index&count
POST /playlist/{id}/collaborative?enabled
POST /playlist/{id}/image <- image data
POST /playlist/{id}/annotation <- text

Each request is described in detail in API methods.

Error responses

As the API is restricted to HTTP we make use of the HTTP protocol when it comes to error indication. The status of any HTTP response is represented by a standard status code. The ranges are as follows:

See Status Code Definitions, RFC 2616 for further details.

The response entity of an error (unless in the case of "bodyless" responses, as defined by HTTP/1.1) contains a simple human-readable message, primarily aiding development.

XSPF response:

HTTP/1.1 400 Bad Request

<error message="The foo argument is empty" />

JSON response:

HTTP/1.1 400 Bad Request

{"message":"The foo argument is empty"}

API methods

---

Querying playlists

GET /user/{username}/playlists/regular -> ordered list of {playlist}s

Retrieve the list of regular playlists for a user.

Authorization: required

GET /user/smedjan/playlists/regular.json

JSON response:

{
  "playlists":[
    {
      "version": "XYZ123",
      "uri": "spotify:user:smedjan:playlist:6welunS19b7RD9lodXrhuG",
      "title": "Spotify playlist",
      "creator": "smedjan"
    }
    ...
  ]
}

XSPF response:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<playlist xmlns="http://xspf.org/ns/0/" xmlns:sp="http://www.spotify.com/ns/music/1" 
    version="1" sp:version="4">
  <trackList>
    <track>
      <identifier>spotify:user:smedjan:playlist:6welunS19b7RD9lodXrhuG</identifier>
      <title>Spotify playlist</title>
      <creator>smedjan</creator>
    </track>
    ...
  </trackList>
</playlist>

GET /user/{username}/playlists/special/starred -> ordered list of {playlist}s

Retrieve users special "Starred" playlist, containing all tracks a user have "starred".

Authorization: required, same owner

The response is the same as for any playlist.

GET /user/{username}/playlists/special/purchases -> ordered list of {playlist}s

Retrieve users special "Purchases" playlist, containing all tracks a user has purchased.

Authorization: required, same owner

The response is the same as for any playlist.

GET /playlist/{id} -> {playlist}

Retrieve any playlist by identifier {id}.

Authorization: no

---

Manipulating playlists

As we perform server-side merging of modifications, a modification request might result in a few different status codes:

• 200 OK -- Modifications applied and your version is the latest.

• 201 Created -- The playlist was created.

• 205 Reset Content -- The modification was accepted but resulted in a dirty state. See below for details.

You will never get a 409 Conflict, since conflicts are resolved automagically.

Modifications implying incorporation of remote edits:

If a modification was accepted but resulted in a dirty state, you will get a 205 Reset Content response, indication your client should reload the playlist from the server.

Example:

> GET /playlists/xyz123
# Some time passes and the playlist is modified by another client.
> POST /playlists/xyz123
< 205 Reset Content
> GET /playlists/xyz123

POST /playlist <- {playlist}

Create a new playlist as the authenticated user.

Authorization: required

Request entity:

A {playlist} object, except the version and identifier members should not be present.

POST /playlist/{id}/add?index <- list of track URIs

Insert one or more tracks into playlist {id} at {index}.

Authorization: required, same owner or collaborator

• index -- The position in the list where to insert the tracks. Indices are 0-based.

Request entity:

List of tracks URIs

Example:

POST /playlist/6welunS19b7RD9lodXrhuG/add?index=4
Content-type: application/json

["spotify:track:5xft6jBZvMHRD1jyTDPQXx","spotify:track:1MD4tX2g5hx0D2WQ6JsC2m"]

POST /playlist/{id}/move?src-index&count&dst-index

Move {count} tracks in playlist {id} from {src-index} to {dst-index}.

Authorization: required, same owner or collaborator

• src-index -- The start position of the tracks to move.
• count -- The number of tracks, starting at src-index, to move (or "select").
• dst-index -- The position where to move (or "land") the tracks, expressed in your versions coordinates.

Example -- move the first two tracks down past the next two tracks:

List before the modification:

0: Track A
1: Track B
2: Track C
3: Track D
4: Track E

POSTing:

POST /playlist/6welunS19b7RD9lodXrhuG/move?src-index=0&count=2&dst-index=2

List after the modification:

0: Track C
1: Track D
2: Track A
3: Track B
4: Track E

POST /playlist/{id}/remove?index&count

Remove {count} tracks from playlist {id} starting at {index}.

Authorization: required, same owner or collaborator

• index -- The start position of the tracks to remove.
• count -- The number of tracks to delete, starting at index.

Example -- remove the first two tracks:

List before the modification:

0: Track A
1: Track B
2: Track C
3: Track D
4: Track E

POSTing:

POST /playlist/6welunS19b7RD9lodXrhuG/remove?index=0&count=2

List after the modification:

0: Track C
1: Track D
2: Track E

POST /playlist/{id}/collaborative?enabled

Toggle collaborative mode for playlist {id}.

Authorization: required, same owner

• enabled -- true to enable other people to edit the contents of the playlist, or false to only allow the ower to edit the playlist.

POST /playlist/{id}/image <- image data

Assign a custom image to playlist {id}.

Authorization: required, same owner

Request entity:

The image data. An empty request entity means "clear the image".

Example:

POST /playlist/6welunS19b7RD9lodXrhuG/image
Content-type: image/jpeg
Content-length: 22355

<JPEG data>

POST /playlist/{id}/annotation <- text

Edit the free-text description of playlist {id}.

Authorization: required, same owner

Request entity:

UTF-8 encoded text.

Example:

POST /playlist/6welunS19b7RD9lodXrhuG/annotation
Content-type: text/plain
Content-length: 21

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