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OAuth setup

ytstudio talks to YouTube through the official APIs, which means you bring your own OAuth client. The flow is one-shot.

1. Create a Google Cloud project

  1. Open the Google Cloud Console and create a project.
  2. Under APIs & Services Library, enable both YouTube Data API v3 and YouTube Analytics API.
  1. Go to APIs & Services OAuth consent screen.
  2. Pick External and create the application.
  3. Fill in app name and your contact email.
  4. Skip scopes for now.
  5. Add yourself as a test user.
  6. Leave the app in Testing mode; you do not need full verification for personal use.

3. Create OAuth client credentials

  1. Go to APIs & Services Credentials.
  2. Create credentials OAuth client ID.
  3. Pick Desktop app as the application type.
  4. Download the JSON file.

4. Initialize ytstudio

ytstudio init --client-secrets path/to/client_secret_<id>.json
ytstudio login

ytstudio init
# prompts for client_id and client_secret
ytstudio login

Credentials and the shared client secrets land under ~/.config/ytstudio-cli/. Files are stored owner-only (0600) and directories owner-only (0700).

Headless login

If you are setting things up on a server without a browser:

ytstudio login --headless

The command prints a Google OAuth URL. Open it in any browser, approve access, and copy the failed 127.0.0.1 redirect URL back into the terminal. ytstudio finishes the exchange locally.

Status

ytstudio status      # show the authenticated channel for the active profile

To remove credentials for a channel, use ytstudio profile remove <name> (see Multi-channel profiles). On a fresh single-channel install the active profile is default.

If you run more than one channel, head to Multi-channel profiles next.