@dada78641/ytdlpdata

This is a very basic library designed for personal purposes. Feel free to use it, but don't necessarily expect updates or support.

A basic library for fetching video metadata using yt-dlp. This library is designed to retrieve structured and typed information from video URLs but does not support video downloads. It runs yt-dlp with the --dump-json flag (among various other options) and returns the output as typed objects.

The yt-dlp output data is somewhat unpredictable due to feature differences between video hosting sites, and the fact that individual videos can differ in numerous ways. As a result of that, the TypeScript types are not entirely correct.

Usage

To start making calls, instantiate a YtDlpData class:

import {YtDlpData, type YtDlpVideoResult} from '../src/index.ts'

// Instantiate a new yt-dlp instance. This will not spawn a process just yet.
// Here you can pass the path to yt-dlp and set default arguments.
const ytDlp = new YtDlpData()

// Get a private video that my logged in user has access to.
const privateVideo = await ytDlp.getVideoData('https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsBeCEQwEEI', ['--cookies-from-browser', 'firefox'])

// Get the 10 latest videos for a particular channel, with a short delay to avoid rate limiting.
const latestVideos = await ytDlp.getPlaylistData('https://www.youtube.com/@CoachPupilLeague/videos', ['--playlist-items', '1-10', '--sleep-requests', '5'])

// Get only basic info about the 10 latest items. This completes much faster since it only needs to process a single HTML page.
const latestVideosFlat = await ytDlp.getPlaylistData('https://www.youtube.com/@CoachPupilLeague/videos', ['--playlist-items', '1-10', '--flat-playlist'])

// Retrieve only channel data, without any video info.
const channelInfo = await ytDlp.getChannelData('https://www.youtube.com/@CoachPupilLeague')

// Request yt-dlp to self-update. This returns an update information object.
const updateInfo = await ytDlp.updateYtDlp()

// Call --dump-json and emit payloads as they come in.
function getSeveralVideos() {
  const payloads: YtDlpVideoResult[] = []
  return new Promise(async (resolve, reject) => {
    const call = await ytDlp.createVideoEmitter('https://ch.sooplive.co.kr/scv6256/vods/review')
    call.on('log', (message: string) => {
      // If --verbose is set, messages will be logged here.
      console.log('log', message)
    })
    call.on('payload', (payload: YtDlpVideoResult) => {
      // The payload is a single video (or a single part of a video, if it is really a playlist item).
      // Process your payload here, or save them up in an array to resolve later, as we're doing here.
      payloads.push(payload)
      // If you have sufficient video results, you can exit the process and resolve.
      call.abort()
      resolve(payloads)
    })
    call.on('close', (code: number | null, signal: NodeJS.Signals | null) => {
      // Called on process close.
      console.log('close', code, signal)
      resolve(payloads)
    })
    call.on('error', (err: Error) => {
      reject(err)
    })
  })
}

Note that some calls will take a very long time to complete. Make sure to set sensible limits.

License

MIT licensed.