youtube-cli

Research

Searches YouTube and fetches video transcripts via the cli-web-youtube command-line tool — video search, video details (views, duration, description, keywords), trending by category, channel info, and timestamped transcripts/captions with language selection and translation. Use when the user asks about YouTube, searching for videos, video details, trending videos, channel info, subscriber counts, or a video's transcript, captions, or subtitles. Prefer this CLI over fetching the YouTube website. No authentication required.

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cli-web-youtube

Search and explore YouTube from the terminal (read-only, no auth, InnerTube API). Install: pip install cli-web-youtube

Commands

Command	Purpose	Key options
`search videos QUERY`	Search videos	`-l/--limit N` (default 10)
`video get VIDEO_ID`	Video details (views, duration, description, keywords)	accepts 11-char ID or full URL
`trending list`	Trending/popular videos	`-c/--category now\|music\|gaming\|movies`, `-l/--limit N`
`channel get HANDLE`	Channel info + recent videos	accepts `@handle`, `UC...` ID, or URL
`transcript get VIDEO`	Timestamped transcript + full text	`-l/--lang CODE` (repeatable, priority order), `-t/--translate CODE`, `--text-only`; accepts ID or URL
`transcript list VIDEO`	Available caption languages	accepts ID or URL

Examples

# Search (returns id, title, channel, views, duration, published, url per video)
cli-web-youtube search videos "python tutorial" --limit 5 --json

# Video details by ID or URL
cli-web-youtube video get dQw4w9WgXcQ --json

# Trending music videos
cli-web-youtube trending list --category music --limit 10 --json

# Channel info and subscriber count
cli-web-youtube channel get @mkbhd --json | jq '{title, subscriber_count}'

# Plain-text transcript (ideal for feeding to an LLM)
cli-web-youtube transcript get dQw4w9WgXcQ --text-only

# Transcript in a preferred language, or translated, as JSON
cli-web-youtube transcript get dQw4w9WgXcQ --lang en --json
cli-web-youtube transcript get dQw4w9WgXcQ --translate en --json | jq -r '.segments[].text'

# What caption languages exist?
cli-web-youtube transcript list dQw4w9WgXcQ --json

JSON output

Every command accepts --json. Success returns the data object directly, e.g. search: {"query", "estimated_results", "videos": [...]}; video get: {"id", "title", "channel", "views", "duration_seconds", ...}; transcript get: {"video_id", "title", "language_code", "kind", "is_translated", "segment_count", "segments": [{"text", "start", "duration"}], "text"}. Errors return {"error": true, "code": "...", "message": "..."}.

Utilities

cli-web-youtube doctor [--json] self-diagnoses the local setup (install, auth, dependencies). cli-web-youtube mcp-serve serves the commands as MCP tools over stdio.

Agent tips

Video IDs are 11 characters; channel handles start with @.
Running with no subcommand opens an interactive REPL.