yt-dlp

Search YouTube and resolve audio stream URLs via yt-dlp.

yt-dlp API for Plugins

The yt-dlp API gives plugins access to the yt-dlp command-line tool for searching YouTube and resolving direct audio stream URLs.

Unless you want your plugin to integrate with Youtube, you probably won't need this API at all.

yt-dlp is a system dependency. If it's not installed on the user's machine, this API won't be available. Always check api.Ytdlp.available before calling any methods.

---

Availability

The yt-dlp host is only configured when Nuclear detects a working yt-dlp binary on the system. The available getter tells you whether you can use the API:

import type { NuclearPluginAPI } from '@nuclearplayer/plugin-sdk';

export default {
  async onEnable(api: NuclearPluginAPI) {
    if (!api.Ytdlp.available) {
      api.Logger.warn('yt-dlp is not installed, skipping YouTube features');
      return;
    }

    // Safe to call search() and getStream() here
  },
};

If you call search() or getStream() without a configured host, they throw Error('YtdlpAPI: No host configured').

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Usage

Searching

import type { NuclearPluginAPI } from '@nuclearplayer/plugin-sdk';

export default {
  async onEnable(api: NuclearPluginAPI) {
    if (!api.Ytdlp.available) return;

    const results = await api.Ytdlp.search('Radiohead Paranoid Android', 5);

    for (const result of results) {
      api.Logger.info(`${result.title} (${result.id})`);

      if (result.duration) {
        api.Logger.info(`Duration: ${result.duration}s`);
      }
    }
  },
};

Getting streams

import type { NuclearPluginAPI } from '@nuclearplayer/plugin-sdk';

export default {
  async onEnable(api: NuclearPluginAPI) {
    if (!api.Ytdlp.available) return;

    const results = await api.Ytdlp.search('Radiohead Paranoid Android', 1);
    if (results.length === 0) return;

    const stream = await api.Ytdlp.getStream(results[0].id);
    api.Logger.info(`Stream URL: ${stream.stream_url}`);
  },
};

---

Data types

YtdlpSearchResult

Returned by search(). Represents a YouTube video matching the query.

Field	Type	Description
id	string	YouTube video ID
title	string	Video title
duration	number | null	Duration in seconds, or null if unknown
thumbnail	string | null	Thumbnail URL, or null if unavailable
channel	string | null	Uploading channel name, or null if unknown

YtdlpStreamInfo

Returned by getStream(). Contains the resolved audio stream URL.

Field	Type	Description
stream_url	string	Direct audio stream URL
duration	number | null	Duration in seconds
title	string | null	Video title
container	string | null	Container format, e.g. 'webm'
codec	string | null	Audio codec, e.g. 'opus'

YtdlpPlaylistInfo

Returned by getPlaylist().

Field	Type	Description
id	string	Playlist ID
title	string	Playlist title
entries	YtdlpPlaylistEntry[]	The playlist's videos, in order

YtdlpPlaylistEntry

Field	Type	Description
id	string	Video ID
title	string	Video title
duration	number | null	Duration in seconds
thumbnails	YtdlpThumbnail[]	Available thumbnails, may be empty
channel	string | null	Uploading channel name

YtdlpThumbnail

Field	Type	Description
url	string	Thumbnail URL
width	number | null	Width in pixels
height	number | null	Height in pixels

These types mirror the Rust types in packages/player/src-tauri/src/ytdlp.rs.

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Reference

// Availability
api.Ytdlp.available: boolean

// Search YouTube for videos
api.Ytdlp.search(query: string, maxResults?: number): Promise<YtdlpSearchResult[]>

// Resolve a video ID to a playable stream URL
api.Ytdlp.getStream(videoId: string): Promise<YtdlpStreamInfo>

// Read a playlist's entries from its URL
api.Ytdlp.getPlaylist(url: string): Promise<YtdlpPlaylistInfo>

---

Stream expiry

Audio stream URLs from YouTube are ephemeral. They expire after a few hours. Don't store them for later use. Resolve a fresh URL each time you need to play a track.

This API is primarily used by streaming providers. Most plugins won't need it.