EDGI Scripts

August 19, 2026 · View on GitHub

Helper scripts for EDGI's digital infrastructure.

We use this as a catch-all for simple scripts that help with repeating tasks. Many of them run automatically in the cloud.

Technologies Used
About These Automated Scripts
Script Catalog

Technologies Used

Uv. A Python project manager. This is the only tool you should need to install directly, it will set up all the others.
Python >=3.14. A programming language common in scripting.
GitHub Actions. A script-running service that runs scheduled tasks for us in the cloud.

About these Automated Scripts

Some of these scripts are run automatically at regular intervals, using GitHub’s “actions workflow” feature. The schedule is set in the .github/workflows/zoom-upload.yml file within this repo.

Script Catalog

Backup to Internet Archive: `archive.sh`

This script is used to run periodically and ensure that recent copies of the EDGI website are backed up to the Internet Archive.

This script is not run automatically.

Usage

bash scripts/archive.sh envirodatagov.org

Convert Zoom timestamps for YouTube: `convert_transcript_timestamps.py`

This script is used from the local workstation to convert the Zoom chat text transcript into a form that's friendly to post into YouTube video descriptions or comments. When the Zoom timestamps are shifted to account for when the recording started, then the timecodes will link directly to the spot in the video where the comment was made.

This script is not run automatically.

Sample chat transcript

See commands

Usage

uv run scripts/convert_transcript_timestamps.py --help
uv run scripts/convert_transcript_timestamps.py transcript.txt > transposed-transcript.txt

Zoom-to-GDrive (or YouTube) Uploader: `upload_zoom_recordings.py` and `auth.py`

This script cycles through each Zoom cloud recording longer than 60 seconds in duration and that has audio, and:

Uploads video to GDrive (default) or YouTube (if set) as unlisted video.
For GDrive:
- Selects a GDrive folder from gdrive-locations.json based on meeting title.
- Creates a subfolder named YYYY-MM-DD <Zoom title>
- Places the video, audio, and chat transcript files in that folder on GDrive.
For YouTube:
- sets video title to be <Zoom title> - Mmm DD, YYYY of recorded date
- sets video license to "Creative Commons - Attribution"
- sets video category to "Science & Technology"
- adds video to a default unlisted playlist, "Uploads from Zoom"
- adds video to a call-specific playlist based on meeting title & topic.
deletes original video file from Zoom (not audio or chat log)

This script is run every hour.

You can see the options by running uv run scripts/upload_zoom_recordings.py --help.

Usage via GitHub Actions

GitHub actions runs the Zoom upload script on a regular schedule. In most cases, you should not need to do anything. To check its status or see logs, click on the “actions” tab for this repository in GitHub.

For forcing a cloud run on-demand: Visit the actions page and click the “run workflow” button near the top-right. In the popup, select your options and click “run workflow.” (You will need to have the right permissions set to click the button.)

Local Usage

Setup

Follow the official instructions to install uv. On Linux and Mac the simplest method is to run:

curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

…but you can also install using most package managers (e.g. Homebrew on Mac) or a variety of other methods. See Uv’s docs for a complete list of options and instructions.

Usage

Copy the .env.sample to .env for you own local use, then manually fill in the appropriate values. This file holds secret keys to access services like Zoom and GDrive, and its contents should never be shared publicly.

cp .env.sample .env
vim .env

Load the secrets from .env into your current environment:

source .env

Additional secrets are stored in encrypted files in this repository. You’ll need to decrypt the appropriate files before running scripts that need them by running:

openssl aes-256-cbc -k "$EDGI_ZOOM_API_SECRET" -in <filename>.enc -out <filename> -d -md sha256

For example, to upload to GDrive, you’ll need to decrypt .gdrive-upload-credentials.json and gdrive-locations.json by running:

openssl aes-256-cbc -k "$EDGI_ZOOM_API_SECRET" -in .gdrive-upload-credentials.json.enc -out .gdrive-upload-credentials.json -d -md sha256
openssl aes-256-cbc -k "$EDGI_ZOOM_API_SECRET" -in gdrive-locations.json.enc -out gdrive-locations.json -d -md sha256

For more info on authorization or to generate totally new credentials files, see the [“authorization” section][#authorization] below.

Finally, run the script you want. For example, to upload Zoom recordings to GDrive, run:

uv run scripts/upload_zoom_recordings.py

Authorization

This script needs authorized access to EDGI’s Zoom account, GDrive, and YouTube account in order to do its work.

Zoom

To access the Zoom API, you have to create a Zoom app. Ours is not published, so it can only be used in EDGI’s Zoom account. For the scripts to access Zoom through the app, they require 3 values that are stored in environment variables:

EDGI_ZOOM_ACCOUNT_ID
EDGI_ZOOM_CLIENT_ID
EDGI_ZOOM_CLIENT_SECRET

You can find the appropriate values on the app’s “App Credentials” page. You can get to that by going to the App Marketplace, clicking on “manage” in the top right, and clicking on the app in the list of “created apps.”

Google (YouTube & GDrive)

Google authorization is slightly more complicated. We have a Google Cloud app that represents our scripts. That app must then be authorized by our Google account(s) to act on their behalf. That authorization expires periodically and needs to be manually recreated.

The basic credentials for the app itself are stored (encrypted) in client_secret.json.enc.
The authorization for the app to work in GDrive is stored (encrypted) in .gdrive-upload-credentials.json.enc.
The authorization for the app to work in YouTube is stored (encrypted) in .youtube-upload-credentials.json.enc.

The upload_zoom_recordings.py script only uses the last two authorization files when it runs. The first file (the app credentials) is only used to generate new authorization files.

To generate a new authorization file, you can use the auth.py script:

Decrypt the client_secret.json.enc file:

# Ensure you have `EDGI_ZOOM_API_SECRET` set to the decryption key.
openssl aes-256-cbc -d -k "$EDGI_ZOOM_API_SECRET" -in client_secret.json.enc -out client_secret.json -md sha256

Run the authorization script. It will open a browser window to a GDrive or YouTube login page, where you should log into the appropriate EDGI Google account. Then it will ask you to authorize the app. Afterward, you can close the window.

The first argument specifies which service to generate authorization for:
```
uv run scripts/auth.py gdrive
```
Or:
```
uv run scripts/auth.py youtube
```
The script should have created a file named .gdrive-upload-credentials.json or .youtube-upload-credentials.json depending on your arguments.

Encrypt the authorization:

# For GDrive:
openssl aes-256-cbc -e -k "$EDGI_ZOOM_API_SECRET" -in .gdrive-upload-credentials.json -out .gdrive-upload-credentials.json.enc
# For YouTube:
openssl aes-256-cbc -e -k "$EDGI_ZOOM_API_SECRET" -in .youtube-upload-credentials.json -out .youtube-upload-credentials.json.enc

Commit the new authorization to git for later use!

git add .gdrive-upload-credentials.json.enc
git add .youtube-upload-credentials.json.enc
git commit
git push

To get a completely fresh set of credentials for the app (should generally never be needed):

Log into the Google Cloud Console and make sure you are working in the appropriate project (“EDGI Scripts”).
In the sidebar, select “APIs & Services,” then “Credentials.”
Find the client ID for this app under “OAuth 2.0 Client IDs” and click to edit it.
Under “client secrets,” click the “add secret” button to go through the process of creating and downloading a new secret. (You cannot view or re-download an existing secret.)

Save the secret to client_secret.json in this repository and encrypt the file:

openssl aes-256-cbc -e -k "$EDGI_ZOOM_API_SECRET" -in client_secret.json -out client_secret.json.enc

Commit the new authorization to git for later use!

git add client_secret.json.enc
git commit
git push

Contributing Guidelines

We love improvements to our tools! EDGI has general guidelines for contributing to all of our organizational repos.

For repo-specific details, see our CONTRIBUTING.md.

License & Copyright

Copyright (C) 2017 Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI) This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, version 3.0.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

See the LICENSE file for details.