youtube_skill

Overview

This skill provides direct curl-based access to the YouTube Data API v3 for searching videos, retrieving video and channel details, listing playlist items, and fetching comments. It is designed for shell-oriented workflows and returns JSON that can be filtered with jq for quick automation and reporting. Use it when you need lightweight, scriptable queries against YouTube without an SDK.

How this skill works

The skill issues HTTP GET requests to https://www.googleapis.com/youtube/v3 with your API key and appropriate query parameters. Responses are standard YouTube Data API JSON payloads; examples demonstrate extracting useful fields with jq (title, id, statistics, duration, comments). Pagination uses nextPageToken and most endpoints accept part= to control returned fields and quota usage.

When to use it

• Automated scripts that search videos by keywords, filters, date, or category.
• Pulling video metadata (views, likes, duration) for analytics or reporting.
• Fetching channel statistics, playlists, and uploads for monitoring or dashboards.
• Listing playlist items or extracting uploads playlist videos for batch processing.
• Retrieving or searching video comments for moderation, sentiment, or QA.
• Getting region-specific trending videos for curation or market analysis.

Best practices

• Store the API key in an environment variable (YOUTUBE_API_KEY) and never embed it in client-side code.
• Request only needed parts (snippet,statistics,contentDetails) to minimize quota usage.
• Use pagination (nextPageToken) and respect rate limits; implement exponential backoff on 403/429 responses.
• Cache responses when practical to reduce repeat API calls and quota consumption.
• Wrap curl commands that pipe to other tools in bash -c '...' to preserve environment variables in pipelines.

Example use cases

• Search top 5 tutorial videos for a keyword and extract video IDs and titles for automated download or indexing.
• Fetch video statistics and duration for a weekly analytics report.
• List all items in a channel playlist to regenerate a curated feed or create a CSV export.
• Pull top comments for sentiment analysis or to populate a moderation queue.
• Get region-specific mostPopular videos for content curation or trend spotting.