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playbook/antigravity-awesome-skills/skills/hasdata-cli/references/youtube.md

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YouTube reference

Subcommands: youtube-search-api, youtube-video-api, youtube-channel-api, youtube-transcript-api. 10 credits each.

*-search-api is keyword-driven; the others target a specific video, channel, or transcript. Most workflows chain search → video → transcript.

youtube-search-api

hasdata youtube-search-api --q "QUERY" [--sort-by relevance|date|views|rating|popularity] \
  [--length under4|between420|plus20] [--date hour|today|week|month|year] \
  [--video-type video|shorts|channel|playlist|movie] \
  [--gl us] [--hl en] [--device-type desktop|mobile] \
  [--pagination-token TOKEN] --raw | jq .

Common flags:

  • --q TEXT (required)
  • --sort-by relevance|date|views|rating|popularity
  • --date hour|today|week|month|year — upload-recency window
  • --length under4|between420|plus20 — duration bucket (<4m, 4–20m, >20m)
  • --video-type video|shorts|channel|playlist|movie
  • --filters hd,k4,hdr,subtitles,cc,d3,d360,vr180,live,bought,location — feature flags ANDed
  • --gl, --hl — country / language
  • --pagination-token — copy from previous response's pagination.nextPageToken
  • --sp — raw YouTube sp= filter token (overrides sort-by / date / video-type / length / filters)

Top-level response keys: videoResults, shortsResults, channelResults, playlistResults, adsResults, sponsoredResults, searchInformation, pagination.

Per-video result: videoId, title, link, channel, description, length, views, viewsOriginal, publishedDate, thumbnail, positionOnPage.

# Latest videos for a topic
hasdata youtube-search-api --q "$Q" --sort-by date --date week --raw \
  | jq -c '.videoResults[] | {title, channel: .channel.name, views, publishedDate, link}'

youtube-video-api

hasdata youtube-video-api --v-param VIDEO_ID [--gl us] [--hl en] --raw | jq .
  • --v-param (required) — 11-char video ID (the v= part of the watch URL)
  • --device-type desktop|mobile
  • --gl, --hl

Top-level fields: videoId, title, description, channel, views, extractedViews, likes, extractedLikes, lengthSeconds, publishedDate, keywords[], captions, socialLinks, music, category, thumbnail, isFamilySafe, isUnlisted, relatedVideos[], relatedShorts[], endScreenVideos[].

# Quick stats
hasdata youtube-video-api --v-param "$VID" --raw \
  | jq '{title, views: .extractedViews, likes: .extractedLikes, length: .lengthSeconds, published: .publishedDate, channel: .channel.name}'

youtube-channel-api

hasdata youtube-channel-api --channel-id "@HANDLE_OR_UCID" \
  [--tab featured|videos|shorts|streams|playlists|posts|community|podcasts|releases|about|store] \
  [--gl us] [--hl en] [--pagination-token TOKEN] --raw | jq .
  • --channel-id (required) — @handle, UC… canonical ID, or legacy /c/<custom> / /user/<name> URL slug
  • --tab — which tab to scrape; default featured (Home page)
  • --pagination-token — for tabs that paginate (videos, shorts, etc.)

Top-level response: channelInfo, featuredVideo, sections[].

channelInfo carries: name, handle, channelId, channelUrl, avatar, banner, description, subscribers, extractedSubscribers, videosCount, extractedVideosCount, keywords[], availableTabs[], verified, websiteUrl, rssUrl, isFamilySafe.

# All uploads (paginated)
hasdata youtube-channel-api --channel-id "@MrBeast" --tab videos --raw \
  | jq -c '.sections[].items[]? | {title, videoId, views, publishedDate}'

youtube-transcript-api

hasdata youtube-transcript-api --v-param VIDEO_ID [--language-code en] [--type asr] --raw | jq .
  • --v-param (required) — 11-char video ID
  • --language-code — BCP-47 / YouTube code (en, de, en-US, pt-BR); must match a track the video actually has
  • --type asr — fetch the auto-generated speech-recognition track (omit for human-authored)

Response: transcript[] and availableTranscripts[].

Each transcript[] entry: startMs, endMs, snippet, startTimeText. Join snippets to reconstruct the full text.

# Flatten to plain text
hasdata youtube-transcript-api --v-param "$VID" --raw \
  | jq -r '.transcript[].snippet' | tr '\n' ' '

Non-obvious use cases

  • "What is this video actually about?" — youtube-transcript-api --v-param X --raw | jq -r '.transcript[].snippet' → feed to an LLM for a real summary, not a thumbnail / title guess.
  • Cite YouTube content in a brief — transcript + timestamps lets you quote with (02:14) accuracy. --type asr fills the gap when the creator never uploaded captions.
  • Channel growth audit — youtube-channel-api --channel-id @X --tab videos paginated; jq '.sections[].items[] | {publishedDate, views: .extractedViews}' gives a velocity-over-time table.
  • Trend discovery — youtube-search-api --q "TOPIC" --sort-by views --date month returns the highest-viewed videos in the last month — a leading indicator for cultural trends well before they hit Google News.
  • Competitor content map — youtube-channel-api --channel-id @competitor --tab videos --raw | jq -r '.sections[].items[].title' enumerates every published title, useful for content-gap analysis.
  • Brand-safety scan — youtube-search-api --q "BRAND" --sort-by date --date week --raw | jq '.videoResults[] | select(.title | test("BRAND"; "i"))' catches new mentions before they go viral.
  • Influencer due diligence — combine youtube-channel-api for subscriber/video counts with youtube-video-api on their top videos (engagement rate ≈ likes / views).
  • "Find the moment they said X" — youtube-transcript-api then jq -r '.transcript[] | select(.snippet | test("X"; "i")) | "\(.startTimeText): \(.snippet)"' returns timestamps of every mention.
  • Music-licensing lookup — youtube-video-api --v-param X --raw | jq .music returns identified tracks (artist, title) when YouTube's Content ID matched.
  • Translate / re-localize a video — pull the English transcript with youtube-transcript-api, translate via LLM, regenerate subtitles. Cheaper than re-transcribing audio.
  • Build a podcast / RSS feed for a channel — youtube-channel-api --raw | jq -r .channelInfo.rssUrl returns the official RSS URL; subscribe in any podcast app.
  • Detect deleted videos — youtube-video-api --v-param X returns an error for removed videos; useful for catching takedowns in archival pipelines.
  • Bulk research → transcript chain — youtube-search-api --q "$Q" --raw | jq -r '.videoResults[].videoId' | xargs -I{} hasdata youtube-transcript-api --v-param {} --raw builds a research corpus from a topic search.
  • Shorts-only / long-form-only feeds — --video-type shorts vs --length plus20 to bias toward one format.
  • Live-stream discovery — --filters live returns only currently live broadcasts; pair with --sort-by date for fresh streams.

Pipelines

# Search → top 5 video transcripts as a corpus
hasdata youtube-search-api --q "$Q" --sort-by views --raw \
  | jq -r '.videoResults[:5][].videoId' \
  | while read -r vid; do
      echo "=== $vid ==="
      hasdata youtube-transcript-api --v-param "$vid" --raw \
        | jq -r '.transcript[].snippet'
    done > corpus.txt

# Channel → CSV of all videos
hasdata youtube-channel-api --channel-id "@$HANDLE" --tab videos --raw \
  | jq -r '.sections[].items[]? | [.videoId, .title, (.extractedViews // 0), .publishedDate] | @csv' \
  > channel_videos.csv

Gotchas

  • --v-param is exactly 11 chars — not the full watch URL. Strip the v= value or use jq -r '.videoResults[0].videoId' from a prior search.
  • --language-code must exist on the video. Pass one of the codes listed in availableTranscripts[], or omit for the default track.
  • --type asr is needed when no human-authored captions exist. Without it the API returns the default human track and errors if there isn't one.
  • @handle is preferred over UC… — easier to read, same result. Legacy /c/ and /user/ slugs also resolve.
  • pagination.nextPageToken is opaque — pass it back via --pagination-token verbatim; don't try to decode.
  • views vs extractedViews — views is the formatted string ("1.2M views"), extractedViews is the integer. Use the integer for math.