0021dd7516
External JS runtime now a hard yt-dlp dependency (Python jsinterp deprecated for YouTube 2025.11.12); QuickJS-ng via NDK or HLahwani/yt-dlp-android is the path. Also fixes a markdown line starting with '#'. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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Android Engine Feasibility — Findings
Companion to 2026-06-27-android-engine-feasibility-research.md.
Each section ends with a verdict: proven / risky / unsolved.
Q1 — yt-dlp on Android
Verdict: RISKY. yt-dlp runs on-device in shipping apps (Seal, YTDLnis,
SealPlus) — proven. But Catacomb's specific need is the asterisk: curl_cffi
TLS impersonation is documented broken on Android (yt-dlp issues #15505 Jan
2026 and #14106 aarch64 Linux), and impersonation is the exact reason Catacomb pins
nightly yt-dlp. The yt-dlp binary update story is good — youtubedl-android
(yausername) exposes UpdateChannel.NIGHTLY to pull fresh builds post-install,
no app-store release, across all four ABIs. Chaquopy is ruled out: no runtime
update path.
- Recommended mechanism: youtubedl-android (only approach with runtime nightly updates + production proof).
- Risk carried forward: the anti-bot layer (impersonation + the Deno-based bgutil POT loopback, which has no Android port) needs a rethink — feeds Q2/Q3.
- Full evidence + sources:
q1-yt-dlp-android-report.md.
Q2 — JS runtime (deno's job)
Verdict: RISKY. An external JS runtime is now a hard dependency —
yt-dlp deprecated its built-in Python jsinterp for YouTube in 2025.11.12
because YouTube's n-sig/PO-token JS exceeds what it can handle, so "no Deno on
Android" cannot be sidestepped by the pure-Python path. A concrete on-device
path exists: cross-compile QuickJS-ng via NDK (arm64-v8a, NDK 26+) and pass
--js-runtimes quickjs:/path/to/qjs; or use HLahwani/yt-dlp-android (May
2026), a purpose-built lib already embedding QuickJS via JNI across all four
ABIs (~1.6 MB AAR). It's "risky" because this is the live breakage frontier —
Seal users have hit 403/missing-format bugs since Jan 2026 on the deprecated
path.
- Recommended approach: QuickJS-ng (
--js-runtimes quickjs:...), or adopt HLahwani/yt-dlp-android which bundles it. - Note vs Q1: this newer lib may supersede youtubedl-android as the mechanism since it solves Q1+Q2 together — weigh in synthesis.
- Full evidence + sources:
q2-js-runtime-android-report.md.
Q3 — POT / Proof-of-Origin
pending
Q4 — Rust core via JNI
pending
Synthesis — go / no-go
pending