summarize

name	summarize
description	Summarize or extract text/transcripts from URLs, podcasts, and local files (great fallback for “transcribe this YouTube/video”).
homepage	https://summarize.sh

Summarize

Fast CLI to summarize URLs, local files, and YouTube links.

When to use (trigger phrases)

Use this skill immediately when the user asks any of:

• “use summarize.sh”
• “what’s this link/video about?”
• “summarize this URL/article”
• “transcribe this YouTube/video” (best-effort transcript extraction; no yt-dlp needed)

Quick start

summarize "https://example.com" --model google/gemini-3-flash-preview
summarize "/path/to/file.pdf" --model google/gemini-3-flash-preview
summarize "https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ" --youtube auto

YouTube: summary vs transcript

Best-effort transcript (URLs only):

summarize "https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ" --youtube auto --extract

If the user asked for a transcript but it’s huge, return a tight summary first, then ask which section/time range to expand.

CLI fallback / override guidance

Repo config prefers CLI backends in this order when available:

1. Codex (cli/codex/gpt-5.4-mini)
2. OpenCode (cli/opencode/opencode/big-pickle)
3. Claude Code (cli/claude, summarize default sonnet)

Use these rules:

• If Codex/OpenCode are missing or unusable but Claude Code exists, use summarize "$INPUT" --cli claude.
• --cli claude resolves to summarize's built-in Claude default (sonnet), not a host-specific Claude override.
• --cli codex still uses the repo-pinned Codex model from config.
• If the user explicitly wants the host CLI's own default model instead of summarize's configured one, bypass summarize's LLM step and use extract-and-pipe handoff.
• pi is not a native summarize CLI provider today, so for pi use extract-and-pipe handoff, not --cli.

Examples:

summarize "$INPUT" --cli claude
summarize "$INPUT" --model cli/claude

{ printf 'Summarize the following content:\n\n'; summarize "$INPUT" --extract --format md; } | claude -p
{ printf 'Summarize the following content:\n\n'; summarize "$INPUT" --extract --format md; } | pi --print --no-session --no-context-files
{ printf 'Summarize the following content:\n\n'; summarize "$INPUT" --extract --format md; } | codex exec --skip-git-repo-check -

For giant pages/transcripts, consider --max-extract-characters <n> or write the extracted Markdown to a temp file first.

Useful flags

• --cli [claude|codex|opencode]
• --length short|medium|long|xl|xxl|<chars>
• --max-output-tokens <count>
• --extract
• --json (machine readable)
• --firecrawl auto|off|always (fallback extraction)
• --youtube auto (Apify fallback if APIFY_API_TOKEN set)

Config

Optional config file: ~/.summarize/config.json

Optional services:

• FIRECRAWL_API_KEY for blocked sites
• APIFY_API_TOKEN for YouTube fallback