Top Shelf

Top Shelf

Settings › Home screen › Layout › Shelf. As on Apple TV, the focused app fills the screen with what is trending there. Down opens a row of recommendations. OK opens an item directly in YouTube, Twitch, ZDF or ARTE, and opens the app itself for the others. Up or Back returns to the apps.

Google TV doesn't share its recommendations with other launchers, so Shore reads public catalogues about once an hour, over HTTPS only:

Apps	Source	Key
ARD Mediathek, ZDF, ARTE	Their own public catalogues	None
Netflix, Disney+, Prime Video, Joyn, waipu.tv, Apple TV	TMDB watch providers for Germany	tmdb.token
YouTube	YouTube Data API v3	youtube.apiKey
Twitch	Twitch Helix API	twitch.clientId, twitch.clientSecret

Apps without recommendations show their own banner, softly blurred. Release APKs carry no keys, so only the catalogues that need none work there; for the rest build from source with your own keys.

Keys go in android/local.properties, or the environment variables TMDB_TOKEN, YOUTUBE_API_KEY, TWITCH_CLIENT_ID and TWITCH_CLIENT_SECRET (also used as GitHub Actions secrets).

Getting the Twitch keys

No login or user token needed. Shore asks Twitch for an app access token by itself (the client credentials flow), so you never sign in or paste a token. You need two values from your own Twitch application:

1. Open the Twitch developer console and choose Register Your Application. Turn on two-factor authentication first if Twitch asks for it.

2. Name: anything unique, for example Shore-TV-yourname. OAuth Redirect URLs: http://localhost. Twitch requires one, but Shore never uses it. Category: Application Integration. Client type: Confidential.

3. Open the application with Manage. Copy the Client ID, then choose New Secret and copy the Client Secret. Twitch shows it only once.

4. Add both to android/local.properties and rebuild:

   twitch.clientId=your-client-id
   twitch.clientSecret=your-client-secret

To check the pair before building, ask Twitch for a token yourself. A JSON reply with access_token means the keys work:

curl -X POST "https://id.twitch.tv/oauth2/token" -d "client_id=YOUR_ID" -d "client_secret=YOUR_SECRET" -d "grant_type=client_credentials"

Authorize links (https://id.twitch.tv/oauth2/authorize?…) and token generator websites create user tokens, which Shore doesn't use. Never paste a user token anywhere: it can act as your account. If you made one, revoke it under twitch.tv › Settings › Connections.