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The pivotal gate does NOT block: POT is required on mobile, but WebView-based BotGuard token generation (proven in YTDLnis) is the durable path and collapses the JS-runtime + POT problems into one, killing the Deno/Node sidecar. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
71 lines
3.5 KiB
Markdown
71 lines
3.5 KiB
Markdown
# Android Engine Feasibility — Findings
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Companion to `2026-06-27-android-engine-feasibility-research.md`.
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Each section ends with a verdict: **proven / risky / unsolved**.
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## Q1 — yt-dlp on Android
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**Verdict: RISKY.** yt-dlp *runs* on-device in shipping apps (Seal, YTDLnis,
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SealPlus) — proven. But Catacomb's specific need is the asterisk: **`curl_cffi`
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TLS impersonation is documented broken on Android** (yt-dlp issues #15505 Jan
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2026 and #14106 aarch64 Linux), and impersonation is the exact reason Catacomb pins
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nightly yt-dlp. The yt-dlp *binary* update story is good — **youtubedl-android**
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(yausername) exposes `UpdateChannel.NIGHTLY` to pull fresh builds post-install,
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no app-store release, across all four ABIs. Chaquopy is ruled out: no runtime
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update path.
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- **Recommended mechanism:** youtubedl-android (only approach with runtime
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nightly updates + production proof).
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- **Risk carried forward:** the anti-bot layer (impersonation + the Deno-based
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bgutil POT loopback, which has no Android port) needs a rethink — feeds Q2/Q3.
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- Full evidence + sources: `q1-yt-dlp-android-report.md`.
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## Q2 — JS runtime (deno's job)
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**Verdict: RISKY.** An external JS runtime is now a **hard dependency** —
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yt-dlp **deprecated its built-in Python jsinterp for YouTube in 2025.11.12**
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because YouTube's n-sig/PO-token JS exceeds what it can handle, so "no Deno on
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Android" cannot be sidestepped by the pure-Python path. A concrete on-device
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path exists: cross-compile **QuickJS-ng** via NDK (arm64-v8a, NDK 26+) and pass
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`--js-runtimes quickjs:/path/to/qjs`; or use **HLahwani/yt-dlp-android** (May
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2026), a purpose-built lib already embedding QuickJS via JNI across all four
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ABIs (~1.6 MB AAR). It's "risky" because this is the live breakage frontier —
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Seal users have hit 403/missing-format bugs since Jan 2026 on the deprecated
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path.
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- **Recommended approach:** QuickJS-ng (`--js-runtimes quickjs:...`), or adopt
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HLahwani/yt-dlp-android which bundles it.
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- **Note vs Q1:** this newer lib may supersede youtubedl-android as the
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mechanism since it solves Q1+Q2 together — weigh in synthesis.
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- Full evidence + sources: `q2-js-runtime-android-report.md`.
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## Q3 — POT / Proof-of-Origin
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**Verdict: RISKY** (the go/no-go gate — and it does NOT block).
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**POT is required** on the mobile surface; you can't reliably skip it for a
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general archiver. The shortcut clients are closing: `android_vr` dropped to
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360p (SABR A/B, Mar 2026) and `tv` was removed from yt-dlp defaults after
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YouTube enforced LOGIN_REQUIRED. **But there is a production-proven path that is
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strictly better than Catacomb's desktop design:** YTDLnis (since v1.8.3, Mar
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2025) runs YouTube's BotGuard JS challenge **inside the Android WebView** and
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passes the resulting web GVS PO token to yt-dlp as an extractor arg. This
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**collapses Q2 and Q3 into one mechanism** — the WebView *is* the JS runtime —
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and **eliminates the Deno/Node sidecar entirely**.
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- **Recommended anti-bot approach:** WebView-based BotGuard/POT generation (à la
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YTDLnis), no sidecar.
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- **Caveats:** tokens are video-bound + ~12h-lived (a WebView attestation call
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per download); native `android`-client DroidGuard tokens remain **unsolved**
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(no open tooling outside genuine Play Services). Fragile cat-and-mouse — must
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track YouTube changes.
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- **Flagged-for-device:** actual token minting + a real download need a device/
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WebView/Google session; not reproducible headlessly here.
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- Full evidence + sources: `q3-pot-android-report.md`.
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## Q4 — Rust core via JNI
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_pending_
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## Synthesis — go / no-go
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_pending_
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