YouTube Shorts, live streams, and playlists as JSON

YouTube has formats the other networks do not share under the same names. Shorts, live streams, and playlists are first-class paths on youtube.fetcher.sh. They are not Instagram Reels and not TikTok short-form. Different hosts, different ids.

YouTube without Cloud is the access story. This note is the three formats. Comments on a video are a thread, not a format. Trending and hashtags are topic objects.

Producers who only call “list channel videos” will miss a creator who lives in Shorts now. That is the entire reason this page exists.

Three formats, one host

Channel Shorts, channel live streams, channel videos, playlist videos, a Shorts id lookup, and ordinary video ids. Keep Reels and TikTok names out of the way so a reader looking for Shorts does not land on IG.

curl -H 'Authorization: Bearer bby_live_…' 'https://youtube.fetcher.sh/api/channel/CHANNEL_ID/shorts'

A Shorts id is not a Reels shortcode. Playlists have their own id space. Live streams on a channel are a list — read the JSON instead of assuming a single “is live” boolean. Resolve the channel first if you only have a handle (handle resolution includes YouTube).

Duration filters on video search help, but they are not a substitute for the Shorts path. When the product is Shorts, call Shorts.

Reels and TikTok are other hosts

Reels are Instagram. Short-form on TikTok is tiktok.fetcher.sh. Shorts are YouTube. The names rhyme; the ids do not. A briefing that says “their short-form” is three possible hosts. Look at the URL you were handed.

Playlists are how talks get bundled. If you sponsor a creator, the playlist of talks is a third path besides long-form uploads and Shorts. Do not flatten them in one column.

A case: a channel that lives in Shorts now

A brand used to sponsor long-form. The creator moved into Shorts. The old “list channel videos” pass now misses most of the work.

The producer resolves the channel, lists Shorts separately from long-form, and only then fetches comments on a Shorts id. They do not mix a three-hour upload into the Shorts column. If the creator also has a playlist of talks, that is a third path.

Need comments in general? Use the threads note. Need Cloud-free access? Use the YouTube access note. Need a Shorts list? Stay here.

A case: “are they live”

A newsroom wants to know if a channel is mid-stream without opening YouTube every five minutes. They list channel live streams and read the payload. They do not scrape the /live URL. They do not assume one boolean field they saw in a screenshot of Studio.

If nobody is live, the list is empty or historical — read it, do not guess. Studio would have owner-only details. This host has the public catalog.

Playlists also catch the “this talk is unlisted-in-spirit but sitting in a public playlist” pattern. If a producer only lists channel videos, they miss it. If they only have a playlist URL, they should not first search the channel name and pray. Playlist id in, videos out.

Shorts comments are still comments. Use the threads note for the object, this note for which video id you hand it. Mixing a live-stream id into a Shorts column is how a clip report includes a four-hour stream.

A weekly producer pass that does not lie: three lists per channel id — uploads, Shorts, live — plus playlists you already care about. Compare counts and top ids to last week. If Shorts exploded and long-form did not, the sponsorship conversation changed. If a live-stream list is always empty, stop polling it every hour; poll when a human says they go live on Fridays.

Reels and TikTok still do not appear in those three lists. Paste the URL, pick the host. The rhyme is not a join key.

Names that rhyme, ids that do not

Reels are Instagram. Short-form on TikTok is tiktok.fetcher.sh. Shorts are YouTube. Docs on youtube.fetcher.sh. 402 or a prepaid key. Cloud stays the upload path. If the briefing said “stories,” you probably want Instagram, not a live-stream list. Premiere listings, if they appear, are still YouTube-native — not a TikTok LIVE and not an IG live. Read the JSON instead of mapping every “live” word in a Slack message onto this path. A channel that “went all in on short-form” still might mean TikTok. Open the URL. If it is youtube.com/shorts, stay. If it is not, leave. The three lists on this host will not notice the other apps. Playlist ids stay in their own column so a talks compilation does not masquerade as “new uploads.” Live-stream lists are a poll, not a push notification; empty most days is normal.