YouTube Video Read Tool - Public Video Metadata

Read public YouTube video metadata and metrics by URL or ID through Vernclaw and AIAPI Center.

What is YouTube Video Read Tool?

YouTube Video Read turns a public YouTube URL or video ID into a normalized metadata row. It is useful when an agent needs to verify a video citation, prepare a source for summarization, or collect creator research signals.

Parameters

Provide one of:

url (optional): public YouTube watch, Shorts, embed, live, youtu.be, or youtube-nocookie URL
id (optional): 11-character YouTube video ID

Example

vernclaw-cli invoke read.youtube.video --url "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abc123def45"
vernclaw-cli invoke read.youtube.video --id abc123def45

Output

The CLI returns compact JSON by default:

{"status":200,"data":{}}

The data payload includes a normalized result plus a single items row with:

title and canonical watch URL
channel details
publish time and duration
public views, likes, and comments when available
source: "youtube" and source_mode: "official_api"
limitations, including transcript absence

Use --pretty only for human-readable inspection. For automation, parse the JSON envelope and numeric status.

Limits

Only public videos are supported. Transcript text, comments, captions, private videos, and authenticated YouTube account data are not included in this version.