Security audit
Security checks for vulnerabilities and agentic risk
The skill is mostly a real YTAPI helper, but its setup flow gives the agent broad authority to create an account, handle verification secrets, and persist an API key across future sessions.
Review before installing. Prefer creating the YTAPI account and API key yourself in the provider UI, then provide the key only for the current session unless you explicitly want it stored. If you allow persistence, confirm exactly where YTAPI_API_KEY will be written and how to revoke or delete it later.
The instructions tell the agent to collect highly sensitive credentials from the user, including an API key and emailed verification code, and then persist the resulting key across future sessions. This centralizes secret handling in the agent workflow and creates a durable credential that could be misused if the environment, logs, or storage location are compromised.
The skill instructs the agent to write signup responses, signup tokens, and account-creation outputs to temporary files and later reuse them to obtain the API key. Even if intended to avoid output redaction, storing sensitive material in /tmp or similar locations increases exposure to other processes, forensic recovery, accidental reuse, and incomplete cleanup.
Tool parameters are crafted to achieve unintended or unsafe behavior. Parameter abuse can bypass intended safety checks (e.g. shell=True, --force, dangerous glob patterns).
2. Check it in the current session without printing it, for example
`test -n "$YTAPI_API_KEY" && echo set`. If the session must be reloaded to
see it, reload it or tell the user.
3. Delete the temporary files: `rm -f /tmp/ytapi-signup.json /tmp/ytapi-verify.json`.
The user can sign in at https://ytapi.dev/auth/login?utm_source=skill with the same email to
see usage, manage keys and buy credits.
The manifest describes channel lookup, uploads, videos, playlists, and playlist video reading, but later documentation also instructs use of a transcripts endpoint and batch submission/polling workflow. Transcript extraction and batch processing expand the skill beyond the narrow channel/playlist browsing scope claimed in the description.
Data is being sent to an external URL. This could be legitimate telemetry or data exfiltration. Manual review is recommended.
# Profile: title, handle, description, subscriber and video counts
curl -s "https://api.ytapi.dev/v1/channels/CHANNEL" -H "Authorization: Bearer $YTAPI_API_KEY"
# Latest uploads
curl -s "https://api.ytapi.dev/v1/channels/CHANNEL/latest" -H "Authorization: Bearer $YTAPI_API_KEY"
Data is being sent to an external URL. This could be legitimate telemetry or data exfiltration. Manual review is recommended.
# Profile: title, handle, description, subscriber and video counts
curl -s "https://api.ytapi.dev/v1/channels/CHANNEL" -H "Authorization: Bearer $YTAPI_API_KEY"
# Latest uploads
curl -s "https://api.ytapi.dev/v1/channels/CHANNEL/latest" -H "Authorization: Bearer $YTAPI_API_KEY"
Data is being sent to an external URL. This could be legitimate telemetry or data exfiltration. Manual review is recommended.
# Profile: title, handle, description, subscriber and video counts
curl -s "https://api.ytapi.dev/v1/channels/CHANNEL" -H "Authorization: Bearer $YTAPI_API_KEY"
# Latest uploads
curl -s "https://api.ytapi.dev/v1/channels/CHANNEL/latest" -H "Authorization: Bearer $YTAPI_API_KEY"
Data is being sent to an external URL. This could be legitimate telemetry or data exfiltration. Manual review is recommended.
# Profile: title, handle, description, subscriber and video counts
curl -s "https://api.ytapi.dev/v1/channels/CHANNEL" -H "Authorization: Bearer $YTAPI_API_KEY"
# Latest uploads
curl -s "https://api.ytapi.dev/v1/channels/CHANNEL/latest" -H "Authorization: Bearer $YTAPI_API_KEY"
Data is being sent to an external URL. This could be legitimate telemetry or data exfiltration. Manual review is recommended.
# Profile: title, handle, description, subscriber and video counts
curl -s "https://api.ytapi.dev/v1/channels/CHANNEL" -H "Authorization: Bearer $YTAPI_API_KEY"
# Latest uploads
curl -s "https://api.ytapi.dev/v1/channels/CHANNEL/latest" -H "Authorization: Bearer $YTAPI_API_KEY"
Data is being sent to an external URL. This could be legitimate telemetry or data exfiltration. Manual review is recommended.
# Profile: title, handle, description, subscriber and video counts
curl -s "https://api.ytapi.dev/v1/channels/CHANNEL" -H "Authorization: Bearer $YTAPI_API_KEY"
# Latest uploads
curl -s "https://api.ytapi.dev/v1/channels/CHANNEL/latest" -H "Authorization: Bearer $YTAPI_API_KEY"
The skill tells the agent to determine how to persist environment variables across sessions and store YTAPI_API_KEY there, but it does not require an explicit user warning or consent before modifying local shell profiles, agent config, or secrets stores. Silent persistence of secrets can alter the host configuration and create lasting access the user did not clearly approve.
The skill directs the agent to create a third-party YTAPI account for the user and then persist the resulting credential, which goes beyond the stated purpose of simply looking up YouTube channels and playlists. This expands the agent’s authority into account provisioning and credential lifecycle management, increasing the chance of unauthorized actions, privacy issues, and unintended long-term access.
The skill requests the user’s email address to create a third-party account but provides no privacy notice, data handling explanation, or clarification that the email will be transmitted to an external service. Collecting personally identifiable information without transparent notice increases privacy and consent risk.
This command transmits the user’s email address to an external service (ytapi.dev) to initiate account creation. While external transmission is necessary for signup, it is still security-relevant because it exports personal data to a third party and broadens the skill beyond read-only channel lookup.
to request in one step.
curl -s -X POST https://ytapi.dev/api/agent/signup \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"email": "USER_EMAIL"}' \
-o /tmp/ytapi-signup.json
This command sends the signup token and the user’s 6-digit verification code to the external service to finalize account creation and retrieve the API key. Because these values are authentication artifacts, transmitting them through the agent workflow materially increases risk if commands, files, or network activity are exposed.
TOKEN=$(sed -n 's/.*"signup_token":"\([^"]*\)".*/\1/p' /tmp/ytapi-signup.json)
curl -s -X POST https://ytapi.dev/api/agent/verify \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d "{\"signup_token\": \"$TOKEN\", \"code\": \"CODE\"}" \
-o /tmp/ytapi-verify.json
No suspicious patterns detected.