solrevdev.ytx 1.0.2

ytx — YouTube → JSON (title, description, transcript)

A .NET global tool that extracts YouTube video metadata and transcripts as JSON.

{
  "url": "https://youtube.com/...",
  "title": "Video title",
  "description": "Video description...",
  "transcriptRaw": "Full transcript as one string...",
  "transcript": "- [00:03](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=...&t=3s) First line\n- [00:07](...) Next line"
}

Features

• 🎯 Single JSON output — Clean, structured data for easy parsing
• 🌍 Captions-aware — Prefers English captions, falls back to any available
• 📝 Markdown transcript — Human-readable format with timestamped links
• 🚀 Cross-platform — Works on macOS, Windows, Linux (.NET 8/9)
• ⚡ Fast & lightweight — No dependencies beyond .NET and YoutubeExplode

Quick Start

Install from NuGet

dotnet tool install -g solrevdev.ytx

Usage

# Basic usage
ytx "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"

# Via JSON input
echo '{"url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"}' | ytx

# Save to file
ytx "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ" > video-data.json

Upgrade

dotnet tool update -g solrevdev.ytx

Output Format

Note: If captions are unavailable (private videos, disabled captions, etc.), transcriptRaw will be empty and transcript will explain why.

Development

Local Build & Test

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/solrevdev/solrevdev.ytx.git
cd solrevdev.ytx

# Restore dependencies
dotnet restore src/Ytx

# Build
dotnet build src/Ytx -c Release

# Test locally
dotnet run --project src/Ytx --framework net8.0 "YOUR_YOUTUBE_URL"

# Pack for local installation
dotnet pack src/Ytx -c Release
dotnet tool install -g solrevdev.ytx --add-source ./nupkg

Project Structure

├── src/Ytx/           # Main project source
├── .github/workflows/ # CI/CD automation
├── build/             # Build artifacts
├── data/              # Test data
├── docs/              # Documentation
├── tests/             # Unit tests
└── tools/             # Development tools

CI/CD

This project uses GitHub Actions for automated publishing:

• Triggers: Push to master branch or manual workflow dispatch
• Version bumping: Automatically increments version (patch/minor/major)
• NuGet publishing: Publishes to nuget.org using NUGET_API_KEY secret
• GitHub Releases: Creates tagged releases with auto-generated notes

Manual Release

Go to Actions → "Publish NuGet (ytx)" → "Run workflow" and choose your version bump type.

Exit Codes

• 0 — Success
• 1 — Unexpected error (network, permissions, invalid video, etc.)
• 2 — Usage error (missing or invalid URL)

Known Limitations

• Private, age-restricted, or region-blocked videos may not provide transcripts
• Videos with disabled captions will show "No transcript available"
• Timestamps are based on caption segment start times
• Large transcripts are not truncated (full output provided)

Dependencies

• YoutubeExplode — YouTube video data extraction
• .NET 8.0+ SDK (for development)

License

MIT License - see LICENSE for details.

Contributing

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch
3. Make your changes
4. Add tests if applicable
5. Submit a pull request

Issues and feature requests are welcome!

Made with ❤️ by @solrevdev