@cli4ai/youtube

Official @cli4ai package • https://cli4ai.com • Install cli4ai: npm i -g cli4ai

Fetch transcripts, search within videos, browse channels and playlists (powered by yt-dlp).

Setup

npm i -g cli4ai
cli4ai add -g youtube

• yt-dlp is required. If it’s missing, cli4ai run youtube … will prompt you to install it.

Commands

cli4ai run youtube transcript <url> [format]     # Get transcript (text|timestamped|json)
cli4ai run youtube search <url> <query>          # Search within video transcript
cli4ai run youtube info <url>                    # Video metadata
cli4ai run youtube channel <handle> [limit]      # Recent videos from channel
cli4ai run youtube playlist <url> [limit]        # Videos in playlist
cli4ai run youtube batch <url1> <url2> ...       # Batch get transcripts
cli4ai run youtube find <query> [limit]          # Search YouTube

Examples

# Get plain text transcript
cli4ai run youtube transcript "https://youtu.be/AJpK3YTTKZ4"

# Get timestamped transcript
cli4ai run youtube transcript AJpK3YTTKZ4 timestamped

# Search for "terminal" in a video - returns clickable timestamps
cli4ai run youtube search AJpK3YTTKZ4 "terminal"

# Get Anthropic's last 5 videos
cli4ai run youtube channel @anthropic-ai 5

# Search YouTube
cli4ai run youtube find "claude ai tutorial" 10

# Get video info (views, likes, duration, etc)
cli4ai run youtube info AJpK3YTTKZ4

Notes

• Works with youtube.com, youtu.be, and shorts URLs
• Transcripts use auto-captions when manual captions aren't available
• Search returns timestamps with direct links to that exact moment
• text format deduplicates overlapping auto-caption segments