Authentication
Scority requests require x-api-key. Store it in server-side environment variables, not notebooks, client apps, or public repos.
Open →youtube-transcript-api Migration to Scority
Move from local youtube-transcript-api scripts to Scority's HTTP API with clear differences around auth, response shape, errors, and limits.
Direct answer
This is a migration, not a drop-in replacement
The open-source youtube-transcript-api package runs inside your Python process. Scority is a hosted HTTP API that returns normalized transcript JSON. Moving between them means changing authentication, request construction, error handling, and operational limits.
- Use x-api-key from server-side configuration.
- Request transcripts with video_id or video_url.
- Expect text, segments, source, and language in successful responses.
- Handle normalized API errors instead of library exceptions.
- Do not assume every YouTube video has accessible captions.
Key differences
What changes in your Python code
The main change is that transcript retrieval moves from an in-process library call to a server-side HTTP request. That makes auth, retries, quota, and observability explicit.
Example
After migration: HTTP request
Use the API from server-side Python. This example reads the key from the server-side environment and keeps it out of browser code.
import os
import requests
response = requests.get(
"https://api.scority.ai/v1/youtube/transcript",
headers={"x-api-key": os.environ["SCORITY_API_KEY"]},
params={
"video_id": "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
"language": "en",
},
timeout=30,
)
body = response.json()
if not response.ok:
code = body.get("error", {}).get("code", "transcript_request_failed")
raise RuntimeError(code)
segments = body["segments"]
text = body["text"]Checklist
Migration checklist
Before routing production traffic through Scority, test the videos, languages, and error cases that matter to your app.
- Replace local library calls with server-side HTTPS requests.
- Keep API keys out of frontend code and logs.
- Map Scority error codes to your app's retry and user-message behavior.
- Respect Retry-After and X-RateLimit headers for 429 responses.
- Update data parsing to use text and timestamped segments.
- Test language-specific requests with language or lang, but do not send both.
Limits
What not to assume
The migration should not rely on claims that are not true in production. Scority does not promise a transcript for every video and does not expose a public web proxy at /api/transcript. Fallback processing is available for supported accounts and harder videos, but it is not a drop-in guarantee for every failed library call.