# /youku/shows/search

`POST /api/youku/shows/search`

Price: 20 credits

Search the Youku catalogue by keyword and get back shows — dramas, films, variety shows, anime, documentaries and kids titles. Every result carries the show id and URL, the Chinese title, category and artwork. The rest of the card is shape-dependent: a handful of results per keyword, at no fixed position in the returned list, are rich cards that also carry the tagline, synopsis, release year, episode count and completion state and the VIP flag, while the sibling-seasons and related-shows cards that make up most of a keyword's results carry none of those — for those rows only the id, title, category and artwork are filled, and the synopsis, episode count and VIP flag come back null rather than filtered out.

## How to use it

The keyword matches Chinese titles and cast names, so an actor's name finds the titles they appear in. Write the query in Chinese — a romanised or English title matches poorly. The source runs out of distinct shows quickly and the yield varies a lot by keyword — a handful for a narrow or generic term, up to several dozen for a well-known title — after which further pages repeat what was already returned, so a large `count` comes back short rather than empty and that is not an error. Results are catalogue cards, not full records: `cast`, `heat`, `chart` and the counters are absent here and come from /youku/shows by `id`. Individual videos, creators and playlists also appear in Youku's own search UI but are not returned by this endpoint, which is shows only.

## Parameters

- `access-token` (string, required)

## Request body

- `timeout` (integer) — Max scrapping execution timeout (in seconds) (default: 300; min: 20; max: 1500)
- `keyword` (string, required) — Words to search the Youku catalogue for (examples: "奔跑吧", "甄嬛传", "白鹿"; minLength: 1)
- `count` (integer, required) — Max number of shows to return (examples: 20; min: 1; max: 50)

## Response

### 200 — Successful Response

- `@type` (string) (default: "YoukuShow")
- `id` (string, required)
- `numeric_id` (string, nullable)
- `name` (string, nullable)
- `subtitle` (string, nullable)
- `description` (string, nullable)
- `url` (string, nullable)
- `category` (string, nullable)
- `category_id` (string, nullable)
- `feature` (string, nullable)
- `release_date` (string, nullable)
- `episode_total` (integer, nullable)
- `episode_label` (string, nullable)
- `last_episode_date` (string, nullable)
- `is_completed` (boolean) (default: false)
- `is_vip` (boolean) (default: false)
- `heat` (integer, nullable)
- `rating` (number, nullable)
- `chart` (string, nullable)
- `chart_rank` (integer, nullable)
- `comment_count` (integer, nullable)
- `like_count` (integer, nullable)
- `follower_count` (integer, nullable)
- `image` (string, nullable)
- `image_vertical` (string, nullable)
- `package_types` (array) (default: [])
- `tags` (array) (default: [])
- `genre_labels` (array) (default: [])
- `cast` (array) (default: [])
  - `@type` (string) (default: "YoukuCastMember")
  - `id` (string, required)
  - `name` (string, nullable)
  - `role` (string, nullable)
  - `image` (string, nullable)
- `seasons` (array) (default: [])
  - `@type` (string) (default: "YoukuSeason")
  - `id` (string, required)
  - `name` (string, nullable)
  - `url` (string, nullable)
  - `last_video_id` (string, nullable)
  - `last_video_url` (string, nullable)
  - `is_current` (boolean) (default: false)
- `latest_video` (object, nullable)
  - `@type` (string) (default: "YoukuVideo")
  - `id` (string, required)
  - `numeric_id` (string, nullable)
  - `name` (string, nullable)
  - `url` (string, nullable)
  - `show_id` (string, nullable)
  - `show_name` (string, nullable)
  - `show_url` (string, nullable)
  - `creator_id` (string, nullable)
  - `creator_name` (string, nullable)
  - `creator_url` (string, nullable)
  - `category` (string, nullable)
  - `video_type` (string, nullable)
  - `episode_order` (integer, nullable)
  - `stage` (string, nullable)
  - `stage_label` (string, nullable)
  - `duration` (integer, nullable)
  - `image` (string, nullable)
  - `publish_date` (string, nullable)
  - `comment_count` (integer, nullable)
  - `like_count` (integer, nullable)
  - `is_vip` (boolean) (default: false)
  - `is_pinned` (boolean) (default: false)
  - `allow_comment` (boolean) (default: false)
  - `allow_download` (boolean) (default: false)
  - `allow_share` (boolean) (default: false)
  - `allow_like` (boolean) (default: false)
  - `audio_languages` (array) (default: [])

## Errors

### 422 — Validation Error

The request body did not validate

What to do: Check the fields against this schema. A URN with the wrong prefix is the most common cause.

- `detail` (array)
  - `loc` (array, required)
  - `msg` (string, required)
  - `type` (string, required)
  - `input` (any)
  - `ctx` (object)

### 408

The request ran past its time limit

What to do: Raise `timeout` in the request body, up to the maximum this endpoint documents. Lowering `count` or turning off the `with_*` flags also helps, because less work finishes sooner.

### 412

The search page did not return a data blob for this keyword — a genuine no-match is 200 with an empty list, not this

What to do: Retrying will not help: either the entity does not exist, or the input points at a different one.

### 429

Too many requests: a rate limit or a usage window is exhausted

What to do: When the response carries an X-Retry-After header, wait that many seconds and retry: the same number is in the body as `detail.retry_after`, and the limit clears once that window passes. The message in the body names the limit that was hit.

### 500

Something broke on our side

What to do: Retrying will not help. If it keeps happening, send us the X-Request-ID from the response headers.

### 529

Rate limit reached, or the endpoint is overloaded

What to do: Wait at least 30 seconds, then retry.

## Response envelope

Success: Array of objects (may be empty if no results)

Error: Error may coexist with partial results if it occurs mid-execution. Check X-Error header and status code.

Every response carries these headers:

- `X-Error` — Error message text (present only on error)
- `X-Request-ID` — Unique request identifier
- `X-Execution-Time` — Execution time in seconds
- `X-Result-Count` — How many records the body carries. 0 means an empty result, which is a normal answer and not by itself an error. A non-zero count can come back together with X-Error when the failure happened partway through — read this header and X-Error independently.
- `X-Total-Available-Results` — How many records exist for this query, when the endpoint can say. On a `dry_run` request this is the answer and the body is empty. It saturates: the endpoint's documented maximum means 'at least that many', any smaller number is exact.
- `X-Warning` — Present when the request body carried keys this endpoint does not document. They were ignored, so any filter you meant to apply through them did not apply. Check the spelling against this schema and retry.
- `X-Retry-After` — Seconds to wait before retrying. Present only on 429.