Video comments

When to use this

Use it for audience research and sentiment: what viewers say, which comments get the most likes, and what the creator pinned or hearted. About 20 comments per page; the first page also has the exact commentCount.

Pagination. Pass the response's continuationToken back as continuationToken (with the same url) for the next page; it's null at the end. YouTube stops at about 1,000 top comments, or a few thousand newest ones. If YouTube sends a later page empty, the call fails with upstream_error (free) instead of ending the list early. Retry it.

Replies. Comments with replies have a repliesContinuationToken; pass it to comment replies.

Videos with comments turned off, and unknown videos, return an empty comments list.

Example request

Copy one and replace YOUR_API_KEY with your API key (get one free). The code versions read the key from the LURKAPI_API_KEY environment variable instead.

curl "https://api.lurkapi.com/v1/youtube/video/comments?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DdQw4w9WgXcQ" \
  -H "x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY"

const params = new URLSearchParams({
  url: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
});
const res = await fetch(`https://api.lurkapi.com/v1/youtube/video/comments?${params}`, {
  headers: { "x-api-key": process.env.LURKAPI_API_KEY },
});
const data = await res.json();
if (!data.success) throw new Error(`${data.code}: ${data.error}`);
console.log(data.comments);

import os
import requests

res = requests.get(
    "https://api.lurkapi.com/v1/youtube/video/comments",
    params={
        "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
    },
    headers={"x-api-key": os.environ["LURKAPI_API_KEY"]},
    timeout=60,
)
data = res.json()
if not data["success"]:
    raise RuntimeError(f"{data['code']}: {data['error']}")
print(data["comments"])

package main

import (
	"encoding/json"
	"fmt"
	"net/http"
	"net/url"
	"os"
	"time"
)

func main() {
	params := url.Values{}
	params.Set("url", "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ")
	req, _ := http.NewRequest("GET", "https://api.lurkapi.com/v1/youtube/video/comments?"+params.Encode(), nil)
	req.Header.Set("x-api-key", os.Getenv("LURKAPI_API_KEY"))

	client := &http.Client{Timeout: 60 * time.Second}
	res, err := client.Do(req)
	if err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}
	defer res.Body.Close()

	var data map[string]any
	if err := json.NewDecoder(res.Body).Decode(&data); err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}
	if data["success"] != true {
		panic(fmt.Sprintf("%v: %v", data["code"], data["error"]))
	}
	out, _ := json.MarshalIndent(data["comments"], "", "  ")
	fmt.Println(string(out))
}

<?php
$params = http_build_query([
    'url' => 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ',
]);
$context = stream_context_create(['http' => [
    'header' => 'x-api-key: ' . getenv('LURKAPI_API_KEY'),
    'timeout' => 60,
    'ignore_errors' => true,
]]);
$body = file_get_contents('https://api.lurkapi.com/v1/youtube/video/comments?' . $params, false, $context);
$data = json_decode($body, true);
if (!$data['success']) {
    throw new Exception("{$data['code']}: {$data['error']}");
}
print_r($data['comments']);

require 'json'
require 'net/http'

uri = URI('https://api.lurkapi.com/v1/youtube/video/comments')
uri.query = URI.encode_www_form(
  'url' => 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ',
)
req = Net::HTTP::Get.new(uri)
req['x-api-key'] = ENV.fetch('LURKAPI_API_KEY')
res = Net::HTTP.start(uri.host, uri.port, use_ssl: uri.scheme == 'https', read_timeout: 60) do |http|
  http.request(req)
end
data = JSON.parse(res.body)
raise "#{data['code']}: #{data['error']}" unless data['success']
puts JSON.pretty_generate(data['comments'])

Parameters

Add them to the URL after a ?. Join several with &.

Example response

A real response, captured from the live API. Lists are trimmed to a couple of items, and long text such as media links is cut short with ….

{
  "success": true,
  "credits_remaining": 999985,
  "credits_charged": 1,
  "comments": [
    {
      "id": "Ugzge340dBgB75hWBm54AaABAg",
      "content": "can confirm: he never gave us up",
      "publishedTimeText": "1 year ago",
      "publishedTime": "2025-09-30T14:33:52.979Z",
      "replyLevel": 0,
      "author": {
        "name": "@YouTube",
        "channelId": "UCBR8-60-B28hp2BmDPdntcQ",
        "isVerified": true,
        "isCreator": false,
        "avatarUrl": "https://yt3.ggpht.com/3s6evpqAiDU9tQR4sC2siJippbH2RWVPnwHgyl4V0th2iuQz0V…",
        "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/@YouTube"
      },
      "engagement": {
        "likes": 321000,
        "replies": 963
      },
      "repliesContinuationToken": "Eg0SC2RRdzR3OVdnWGNRGAYygwEaUBIaVWd6Z2UzNDBkQmdCNzVoV0JtNTRBYUFCQWciAggA…",
      "isPinned": true,
      "isHearted": true
    },
    {
      "id": "UgyEnXfdC-umwvTt8JF4AaABAg",
      "content": "Gonna flag this for nudity so I can rick roll the YouTube staff",
      "publishedTimeText": "6 years ago",
      "publishedTime": "2020-10-01T14:33:52.979Z",
      "replyLevel": 0,
      "author": {
        "name": "@Oatman69",
        "channelId": "UCWf34D_s8K_m2vwBISIDWtg",
        "isVerified": false,
        "isCreator": false,
        "avatarUrl": "https://yt3.ggpht.com/ghenbV7T5VMOA3iqp3PThC82exqcu7iVng_iWNx1Ujak72Ti4o…",
        "channelUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/@Oatman69"
      },
      "engagement": {
        "likes": 567000,
        "replies": 707
      },
      "repliesContinuationToken": "Eg0SC2RRdzR3OVdnWGNRGAYygwEaUBIaVWd5RW5YZmRDLXVtd3ZUdDhKRjRBYUFCQWciAggA…",
      "isPinned": false,
      "isHearted": false
    }
  ],
  "continuationToken": "Eg0SC2RRdzR3OVdnWGNRGAYyggMK2AJnZXRfcmFua2VkX3N0cmVhbXMtLUNxY0JDSUFFRlJl…",
  "commentCount": 2457944
}

Response fields

Every field in a successful response, and what it means. A name with [] belongs to each item of a list: comments[].id is the id of every item in comments. null means there's no value.

Cost and freshness

Each call costs 1 credit. Calls turned away before they reach the platform (invalid parameters, a key or balance problem, a rate limit) are free, and so are 5xx errors. A not_found is charged, since the platform was checked. How charging works.

Answers are cached for up to 10 minutes. A repeat call within that time can return the same data, and costs the same.

Errors

A failed call returns success: false, an error message, a code your program can check, and a docs link. These are the errors this endpoint can return. All error codes.

Use it in Claude

Connect LurkAPI to Claude and ask in plain English. This endpoint is the youtube_comments tool. For example:

Use LurkAPI's youtube_comments tool with url "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ", then summarize what you find.

Claude calls youtube_comments with arguments like these, and each call costs 1 credit:

{"url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"}

To save tokens, tool results leave out empty fields, keep one URL per image or video, and give transcripts as plain text unless you pass timestamps=true. A result over 45,000 characters comes in parts. Its _note gives the offset for the next part, and later parts are free for 15 minutes. Pass trim=false for the full response.