unshackle/docs/reference/configuration/services.md

Services & authentication

services

• Type: dict keyed by service tag  ·  Default: {}

Per-service configuration, keyed by the canonical service tag (for example EXAMPLE1, EXAMPLE2, EXAMPLE3). unshackle reads several well-known sub-keys out of each service's block:

• proxy_map: remaps the region query you passed to -p/--proxy for this service. A config key is that query, or "provider:query" when the flag also named a proxy provider. The value is the query asked of the proxy provider instead. It has no effect when you give -p a full proxy URL.
• title_map: an exact-match rename map applied to fetched titles (source name → desired name), so a service that names a title differently from your library still matches.
• dl: per-service download defaults, using the same keys as the global dl block.

Individual services may read any additional keys they define. unshackle hands the merged result (the service's own config.yaml with this block layered on top) to the service as self.config.

User- or device-specific values (API keys, account IDs, device attributes) belong in this block rather than in the service's own config.yaml, which holds shared defaults. See creating a service.

services:
  EXAMPLE1:
    proxy_map:
      us: us-nyc
      "nordvpn:ca": ca-toronto
    title_map:
      "My Show: The Movie": "My Show Presents The Movie"

credentials

• Type: dict keyed by service tag  ·  Default: {}

Per-service login credentials. Each value is a username:password[:extra] string, the same data as a [username, password] (or [username, password, extra]) list, or a dict of profile name to either of those. With the dict form, -p/--profile selects the entry, and unshackle uses the default config key when you give no profile, or when the named profile is missing. unshackle parses these into Credential objects. It also uses the credential's SHA-1 as an account hash for cache keys.

credentials:
  EXAMPLE2: user@example.com:hunter2
  EXAMPLE1:
    default: primary@example.com:pw1
    second: secondary@example.com:pw2

!!! tip "Cookies vs credentials" unshackle stores cookies as files under directories.cookies, not in this config key. A service's authenticate() accepts cookies, credentials, or both.

firefox_cookies

• Type: dict keyed by service tag  ·  Default: {}

Settings for extracting cookies directly from a local Firefox profile. A service block must give hosts, a list of cookie hostnames. unshackle ignores an entry shorter than 3 characters, to prevent a broad match dumping most of the profile. With an optional local_storage boolean, unshackle also pulls matching entries from webappsstore.sqlite, which only services that keep auth tokens in localStorage rather than in HTTP cookies need. Extraction is read-only.

!!! note "Firefox does not need to be closed" The extractor copies both cookies.sqlite and its WAL file into a 0700 temp directory, so the copy holds the writes Firefox has not yet flushed to the main DB. Extraction fails only if Firefox holds an exclusive write lock at the instant of the copy. The live profile is not modified.

!!! warning "Extraction falls back silently to file cookies" If extraction yields no cookies or fails for any reason, unshackle silently falls back to the normal file-based cookie path (cookies/<SERVICE>.txt or cookies/<SERVICE>/<profile>.txt), with no error reported.

remote_services

• Type: dict  ·  Default: {}

Definitions of remote unshackle service servers, used by the --remote mode. Each entry is named by you (pick it with --server, or do not write that flag when you configure only one) and gives the server's url (required), an optional api_key, an optional auth_headers list, an optional server_cdm boolean, and an optional services sub-dict of per-service local overrides such as title_map.

auth_headers lists extra header names to send the API key in, tried before the defaults X-Secret-Key and X-Api-Key, which are always appended as fallbacks. unshackle sends the first name. If the server answers 401, it retries the same request with the next name, and keeps the one that works for the rest of the HTTP session. Names you give keep your spelling and are not repeated in the fallbacks, so unshackle tries auth_headers: ["Authorization", "x-secret-key"] as Authorization, x-secret-key, X-Api-Key.

In --remote mode unshackle turns the server's service list into synthetic CLI commands that operate against it, falling back to the tags in that services sub-dict when unshackle cannot fetch the list. Each synthetic command carries the server-side service's options and documentation, so unshackle dl --remote <TAG> -h shows the same help text as it does on the server. See remote sessions for the full setup.

serve

• Type: dict  ·  Default: {}

Configuration for the serve command (the built-in REST API server). The full server guide is the REST API section. These are the config keys.

Sub-key	Type	Default	Description
api_secret	str	(unset)	Master secret accepted in the X-Secret-Key header. Required unless the server is started with --no-key.
users	dict	{}	Per-user API keys and their allowlists (see below).
services	list	(unset)	Global service allowlist. Omit to allow all.
remote_only	bool	false	Expose only the remote service session endpoints (health, services, search, session) and disable the rest of the REST API.
session_ttl	int (s)	300	Lifetime of an interactive auth session.
max_sessions	int	100	Maximum concurrent sessions.
history_limit	int	100	How many finished jobs to retain in history.
compression_level	int	1	gzip level for responses.
services_refresh_interval	int (s)	0	How often the server pulls the git-backed service repositories in directories.services and hot-reloads the services that changed. 0 turns it off. A service with a running or queued job swaps to the new code as soon as its last job finishes.
global_speed_limit	str	(unlimited)	Server-wide download speed cap, e.g. 10M, 1.5G or plain bytes/sec (same format as speed_limit). One shared budget across all concurrent jobs; per-job speed limits are ignored while it is set.
cdm_overrides	list or bool	(unset)	Allowed per-request CDM overrides: a list of permitted device names, or true for any. Unset rejects every override.
allow_job_credentials	bool	false	Permit clients to supply credentials per job.
devices	list	(auto)	Widevine devices offered; auto-filled from directories.wvds.
playready_devices	list	(auto)	PlayReady devices; auto-filled from directories.prds.

Each entry under users uses that user's API key as its name, and can set its own services, devices, and playready_devices allowlists, narrowing the global ones, plus an optional username used as the log label for that API key (defaults to a truncated form of the API key). A user with no playready_devices config key gets no PlayReady access at all, not the global list.

server_cdm decides whether the server runs the CDM licensing for that API key. It is false unless the entry sets it, so a remote client configured with server_cdm: true is told to license with its own local CDM instead, and a client that asks anyway gets a FORBIDDEN error. Because a download job always licenses with the server's CDM, an API key without server_cdm also cannot submit or retry /api/download jobs. Keys that have no users entry, such as api_secret, keep server CDM access.

serve:
  api_secret: change-me
  remote_only: true
  services: [EXAMPLE1, EXAMPLE2]
  services_refresh_interval: 3600   # pull the service repositories hourly and reload what changed
  # server-wide download defaults (same keys as the `dl:` block)
  downloads: 3
  best_available: true
  users:
    a1b2c3d4:                     # this user's API key
      services: [EXAMPLE1]        # may only use EXAMPLE1
    e5f6a7b8:
      server_cdm: true            # this key may have the server do the licensing

!!! note "dl keys inside serve" Most dl flag keys (downloads, workers, best_available, and so on) can be set directly inside serve, where they apply to every request the server handles. The server recognises a fixed subset of download parameters, so a few CLI-only flags are ignored here.