Tools & keys · Communities
YouTube setup
Comments under tutorials and reviews where people ask for tools.
Optional
Updated
Free tier
The API is free with a daily quota of 10,000 units. A search costs 100 units and reading comments costs 1 per video.checked September 2026
Larvabot's cap
Nothing to cap: rate limits just hand the job to the next provider.Fallback position
#3 of 8 for conversations. See the orderWhat it does
The YouTube Data API lets apps search videos and read their public comments.
- Reading comments under videos that match each project's YouTube searches
Get set up
- In Google Cloud Console, enable YouTube Data API v3
- Create an API key under APIs & Services → Credentials
- Paste it in Settings → Conversations → YouTube Data API key
Where it goes
In the dashboard, open Settings and find the Conversations (optional keys) section. Secret values are encrypted before they're saved and only their last four characters are ever shown again.
Settings → Conversations (optional keys)
YouTube Data API keyencrypted
YOUTUBE_API_KEYFree in Google Cloud: enable YouTube Data API v3, create an API key. Adds YouTube comments.
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Staying free
Larvabot runs only a few searches per check, far below the daily quota.
How the quota guard works →Fallback order
For conversations, Larvabot tries these in order and skips any that aren't set up, are out of free quota or are busy.
- 1Hacker News search (Algolia)
- 2Stack Exchange API
- 3YouTube comments (Data API)
- 4GitHub issues & discussions
- 5Bluesky search
- 6Lemmy (federated communities)
- 7Discourse forums
- 8Web discussions (your search keys)