PO tokens

Some clients, mweb, web_creator and web_music, only play with a proof-of-origin (PO) token. Ytdl mints one for them with no setup, and one for every SABR session.

Built-in provider

Without getPoToken, each Ytdl instance starts its own provider the first time it needs a token. The provider runs in a worker thread, so your process’s globals stay untouched. It sends its requests through the fetch and timeoutMs you gave Ytdl, so it works behind the same proxy.

• A lookup that an earlier client answers starts no worker. A SABR download always starts one, because it needs a token when it begins.
• If the provider fails to start, that client’s attempt fails with step po-token and the error as cause. The next request starts a fresh provider. See Errors.
• There is nothing to dispose. The idle worker does not keep your process running.
• The instance holds its worker until the process exits, so create one Ytdl per account or network identity, not one per request.

To keep the worker from starting at all, leave mweb, web_creator and web_music out of clients. A SABR download still starts one.

Sharing or disposing a provider

createPoTokenProvider starts the same provider yourself. Pass it as getPoToken to share one worker across instances or to stop it on shutdown:

import { createPoTokenProvider, Ytdl } from "@distube/ytdl-core";

declare const proxiedFetch: typeof fetch;

const getPoToken = await createPoTokenProvider({ fetch: proxiedFetch });
const yt = new Ytdl({ fetch: proxiedFetch, getPoToken });

// on shutdown
await getPoToken.dispose();

timeoutMs bounds each request the provider makes, meaning the response headers and each body chunk. It defaults to 30 000. A stalled request fails that mint with REQUEST_FAILED, and the next mint starts over. After dispose(), calls reject with INVALID_STATE. Aborting options.signal disposes it too.

Your own minter

Any function that returns a token works, for example one that calls a separate token server:

import { Ytdl } from "@distube/ytdl-core";

const yt = new Ytdl({
  getPoToken: async ({ contentBinding, client, signal }) => {
    const response = await fetch("http://localhost:4416/token", {
      method: "POST",
      body: JSON.stringify({ contentBinding, client }),
      signal,
    });
    return response.text();
  },
});

Ytdl calls it for each player request that needs a token and once when a SABR download starts. contentBinding is the video ID in both cases. The built-in provider mints and caches one token per contentBinding.