YT-DLP Live Stream Proxy

Auto-extract YouTube live stream URLs using yt-dlp and serve them via clean proxy paths.

Features

• Add any YouTube channel handle (e.g. @ABCNews)
• Automatically runs yt-dlp -g every 3 hours
• Stores URLs in Supabase Database
• Access streams via https://your-app.com/1.m3u8, /2.m3u8, etc.
• Clean dark-mode web UI to manage channels

Supabase Setup

1. Create a new project at supabase.com
2. Go to Table Editor → New Table
3. Create table channels:
   • id: int8, primary key, auto-increment
   • handle: text, not null
   • path: text, not null, unique
   • stream_url: text
   • status: text (default: 'pending')
   • error_msg: text
   • expires_at: timestamptz
   • updated_at: timestamptz
   • created_at: timestamptz, default: now()
4. Go to Project Settings → API → copy URL and service_role key
5. Paste them into your environment variables

Deploy on Render (Recommended)

1. Push this repo to GitHub
2. On Render, create a New Web Service → connect your repo
3. Set Build Command:

   pip install yt-dlp && npm install
   

4. Set Start Command:

   node server.js
   

5. Add environment variables (SUPABASE_URL, SUPABASE_SERVICE_KEY)
6. Deploy

Note: Render free web services spin down after 15 min inactivity. For reliable 3-hour cron jobs, use Render's Background Worker (paid) or upgrade to a paid web service. Alternatively, use an external ping service (like UptimeRobot) to hit /health every 5 minutes to keep it awake.

Deploy on Railway

1. Push repo to GitHub
2. Create new project → deploy from GitHub repo
3. Add variables in Railway dashboard
4. In Settings → add build command: pip install yt-dlp && npm install
5. Railway keeps services running 24/7 on paid plans

Why not Vercel / Cloudflare Workers?

• Vercel: Serverless functions have max timeout (~300s on Pro, 10s on Hobby). yt-dlp needs shell access and can take 30-60s. Not suitable.
• Cloudflare Workers: No shell/binary access. Cannot run yt-dlp.
• GitHub: Not a hosting platform for persistent servers. You could use GitHub Actions for cron, but not for serving web traffic.

API Endpoints

Method	Endpoint	Description
GET	/	Web UI
GET	/api/channels	List all channels
POST	/api/channels	Add channel (body: {handle})
DELETE	/api/channels/:id	Remove channel
POST	/api/channels/:id/refresh	Manual refresh
GET	/:path.m3u8	Redirect to actual stream URL
GET	/health	Health check

How it works

1. You add @ABCNews via the UI
2. Server immediately runs: yt-dlp --js-runtimes node -g https://www.youtube.com/@ABCNews/live
3. Output URL is saved to Supabase with path 1
4. Every 3 hours, cron re-runs the command and updates the URL
5. Visiting your-app.com/1.m3u8 302-redirects to the current live stream URL