Is there a reason I can channels://play/show/seinfeld?shuffle=true but cannot http://channels:57000/api/play/seinfeld?shuffle=true? I'd like to add it to my good night routine for TV and not my phone. But apparently I can only play a specific channel or something Channels DVR itself has recorded. Is that right?
You have to use the tv show ID not the title for those to work.
Check the documentation again.
Obviously. I put seinfeld for readability. Now on to the question. Or is the answer, “You can’t”?
I don’t understand the question because I’m not sure you’re using the features correctly.
You would have to include /show/ in the URL (/api/play/show/<show-id>) if you wanted it to play a show, like you did /play/show/<id> for the Deep Link:
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Oh I understand now 
If what @eric suggested works, then yes, this is an issue with documentation.
If it does not, then yes, it's not supported in the Channels API, and we can look at adding it and getting the Channels API and Deep Links more in line with each other.
Thank you, @eric. Unfortunately adding /show/ returns 404 so I'll assume it's not supported. The use case, if you need something to help rank your backlog, is that I like to have one or two specific shows playing to help me fall asleep. Even if it's a playlist, collection, whatever container I can add imported media to, that I could shuffle, would work.
As a half-measure, I've created a virtual channel with the content, set it to sort 'Random' (a.k.a. shuffle). That allows me to curl http://channels:57000/api/play/channel/seinfeld. But a virtual channel doesn't allow me to skip ahead, etc.
TL;DR
As someone who's mind races at night, I find having a show playing that mildly holds my attention helps me fall asleep. Basically a busy noop to keep my mind busy so I won't reflect on the day (which leads me to never getting to sleep). But it can't be too interesting either, otherwise it will keep me awake and defeats the purpose. Seinfeld and Frasier both serve that purpose for me. So I purchased their catalogs.
Ok great. I’ll get the api supporting the same functionality as the other things. They all actually use the same part of the app to process. The Channels API, Shortcuts, and Deep Links are just all sort of front ends to the same thing.
And I feel ya on the sleeping thing 
. My show is Law & Order and I’m almost done with it 
.
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So, looking at this, these end points did exist on the Apple TV app (though not documented because they're not in the Android app), but they were not working correctly in that they only would play if you added the playNext param in the URL, which is optional, but wouldn't work without it.
Now, playing the next episode (based on watch state) is the default for /play/show and /play/playlist without the need for the playNext param in the URL.
Are you doing this on the Apple TV version?
Awesome, @maddox, thank you!
When I get back I'll TestFlight >= .0246 (your CI/CD has already iterated but I assume they are cummulative?)
Brilliant work, thank you.
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