YouTube API CLI

yt-api-cli

Manage your YouTube account from the terminal. A complete CLI for the YouTube Data API v3.

Installation

# Using go install
go install github.com/nerveband/youtube-api-cli/cmd/yt-api@latest
Or download from releases
curl -L -o yt-api https://github.com/nerveband/youtube-api-cli/releases/latest/download/yt-api-darwin-arm64
chmod +x yt-api
sudo mv yt-api /usr/local/bin/

Setup

1. Google Cloud Console Setup

1. Go to Google Cloud Console 2. Create/enable YouTube Data API v3 3. Create OAuth 2.0 credentials (Desktop app) 4. Download client configuration

2. Configure yt-api

mkdir -p ~/.yt-api
cat > ~/.yt-api/config.yaml << EOF
default_auth: oauth
default_output: json
oauth:
  client_id: "YOUR_CLIENT_ID"
  client_secret: "YOUR_CLIENT_SECRET"
EOF

3. Authenticate

yt-api auth login  # Opens browser for Google login
yt-api auth status # Check auth state

Commands

List Operations

# List your videos
yt-api list videos --mine
List channel videos
yt-api list videos --channel-id UC_x5XG1OV2P6uZZ5FSM9Ttw
List playlists
yt-api list playlists --mine
List subscriptions
yt-api list subscriptions --mine

Search

# Basic search
yt-api search --query "golang tutorial"
With filters
yt-api search --query "music" --type video --duration medium --order viewCount

Upload Operations

# Upload video
yt-api upload video ./video.mp4 \
  --title "My Video" \
  --description "Description here" \
  --tags "tag1,tag2" \
  --privacy public
Upload thumbnail
yt-api upload thumbnail ./thumb.jpg --video-id VIDEO_ID

Playlist Management

# Create playlist
yt-api insert playlist --title "My Playlist" --privacy private
Add video to playlist
yt-api insert playlist-item --playlist-id PLxxx --video-id VIDxxx

Channel Operations

# Get channel info
yt-api list channels --id UCxxx --part snippet,statistics
Update channel description
yt-api update channel --id UCxxx --description "New description"

Output Formats

# JSON (default - LLM-friendly)
yt-api list videos --mine
Table (human-readable)
yt-api list videos --mine -o table
YAML
yt-api list videos --mine -o yaml
CSV
yt-api list videos --mine -o csv > videos.csv

Global Flags

| Flag | Short | Description | |------|-------|-------------| | --output | -o | Output format: json (default), yaml, csv, table | | --quiet | -q | Suppress stderr messages | | --config | | Path to config file | | --auth-type | | Auth method: oauth (default), service-account |

Environment Variables

| Variable | Description | |----------|-------------| | YT_API_AUTH_TYPE | Auth method: oauth or service-account | | YT_API_OUTPUT | Default output format | | YT_API_CLIENT_ID | OAuth client ID | | YT_API_CLIENT_SECRET | OAuth client secret | | YT_API_CREDENTIALS | Path to service account JSON |

Authentication Methods

OAuth 2.0 (Default)

yt-api auth login  # Opens browser

Service Account

yt-api --auth-type service-account --credentials ./key.json list videos

Quick Diagnostic Commands

yt-api info                      # Full system state
yt-api info --test-connectivity  # Verify API access
yt-api info --test-permissions   # Check credential capabilities
yt-api auth status               # Authentication details
yt-api version                   # Version info

Error Handling

Exit codes:

For LLMs and Automation

Notes

Source

GitHub: https://github.com/nerveband/youtube-api-cli

1. Google Cloud Console Setup

1. Go to Google Cloud Console 2. Create/enable YouTube Data API v3 3. Create OAuth 2.0 credentials (Desktop app) 4. Download client configuration

2. Configure yt-api

mkdir -p ~/.yt-api
cat > ~/.yt-api/config.yaml << EOF
default_auth: oauth
default_output: json
oauth:
  client_id: "YOUR_CLIENT_ID"
  client_secret: "YOUR_CLIENT_SECRET"
EOF

3. Authenticate

yt-api auth login  # Opens browser for Google login
yt-api auth status # Check auth state