Introduction + Is it possible to automate Creative Cloud Asset sharing using APIs?

Hi!

I’ve been developing extensions for Adobe Premiere for about a year now, but I only recently learned about some of Creative Cloud’s newest APIs. I’m really excited about the possibilities, but am having trouble figuring out what’s currently supported.

I posted on the Adobe Support Community about a workflow I’m trying to automate, but am not sure where to start with. Basically, I want to sort through video files on an initial local directory, upload them to a new folder in the Files section on Creative Cloud Web, then share that folder with another user in my organization. The goal of this is for that final user to sync the files from the initial directory to their local machine.

I looked through the Libraries API, and calls like this one are exactly the kind of thing I’m looking for. However, that only works for small assets, and operates outside of the Creative Cloud Files/Assets environment that would allow files to be synced and downloaded when the end user accepts a collaboration invite. Do similar endpoints exist for that?

Any help is greatly appreciated, even if it’s just pointing me to a better place to ask this question. Thanks so much!

Hi there! :wave:

When it comes to large video files in particular, I think Creative Cloud Teams or Enterprise accounts might have some of the kind of asset syncing you’re looking for. (But I could be wrong!) You can read about Team Projects here and here. Let me know if that’s the wrong direction…

It could also be that Creative Cloud Libraries, having just launched, isn’t quite what you need yet, but this is a great place to request features… (@ryanstewart)

Thanks for your reply!

Yes, that’s the right direction. So far I’ve successfully used Creative Cloud’s File collaboration features to sync files across remote machines, as described in this MAX session. However, for this to be beneficial to my team’s workflow, I would want to automate a few of the steps (namely, 1. choosing what gets uploaded to Creative Cloud Files, 2. adding an email address as a collaborator, and maybe 3. sending some sort of trigger when my Creative Cloud storage is too full to upload the requested files).

I understand the APIs are still in development, but I’m having trouble sorting through existing information about the Files or Assets APIs specifically. This exists and looked promising to me, but the parent site is no longer in service and on the GitHub project it says: Creative SDK [End of life, April 2019]. Similarly, I started a project on Adobe I/O that subscribes to Events from Creative Cloud Assets, which also looked promising, but on both the project page and on the linked documentation (Setting Up Creative Cloud Asset Events on Adobe I/O Events), it says those events are deprecated. So it seems like an API I’m looking for has existed already somewhat, and a wealth of information exists about it, but I’m struggling to connect the dots about its current status. Is that API maybe just not accessible while it’s being revised?

The Libraries API looks great, and in fact I already see several of the endpoints I’m looking for already exist for Libraries. However, Files and Libraries work differently, and the Libraries API doesn’t seem to overlap with Files. I mostly tagged this post as a Creative Cloud Libraries question because I don’t know where else to ask and it seems to be the most similar.

Sorry if that’s too long, but I guess my main questions are: are there any existing API endpoints for assets stored on the Files section of Creative Cloud Web, as opposed to just what’s in the Libraries section? If not, will there be a separate API for Files?

I did ask the Libraries team about this, and someone should respond to you soon!

I can at least confirm that yes, the Creative CSDK has been deprecated. Pieces of it are still out there functioning, but it is no longer supported. It’s not taking new applications, and the zendesk instance is closed. I think the idea is that Libraries is supposed to cover some of the previous functionality of the CSDK so people who’ve been left hanging have an alternative.

I don’t know much about the I/O Events, since it’s part of the Experience Cloud rather than the Creative Cloud, so it’s handled by a different team.

A lot of people have been waiting for new APIs to perform some of functionality you’ve mentioned, you’re definitely not alone there.

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Hi @atraviezo!

To answer the basic question: There isn’t a plan to have a separate API for Files as they exist today but we do want to enable the kind of workflow described. The more nuanced answer is that there are some updates coming to the Files experience of the course of next year and so our plan is to make sure that there is an API to access Files that leverages those updates. That will include Event support for those as well as the ability to manage collaborators through the API.

I’d be happy to chat more, and it might be really great to hear more about your specific workflow. If you’re open to the discussion, my email is ryan@adobe.com.

I hope that helps but realize it’s not ideal news.

=Ryan

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Thanks so much to both of you, that’s very helpful to know! Is there a place I can watch for updates, other than keeping an eye on Creative Cloud software announcements?

Ryan, I appreciate the info and I’m curious to know some more about those features. I’ll follow up with you in an email.

Is there a place I can watch for updates, other than keeping an eye on Creative Cloud software announcements?

Absolutely! Besides this forum, we have a monthly-ish newsletter. You can subscribe to the Creative Cloud feed of the Adobe Tech Blog here.