| name | yt-clone |
| argument-hint | <youtube-url> [--start <sec>] [--duration <sec>] [--slug <name>] [--test "<phrase>"] [--blind] |
| description | Clone a voice from a YouTube video — download audio, auto-pick a clean segment (via sample-pick), import it into voicecli, manage VRAM, and generate a test clone. Triggers: "clone from youtube" | "voice from youtube" | "yt clone" | "clone youtube voice" | "extract voice from video". |
| version | 1.1.0 |
| allowed-tools | Bash, Read, Glob |
yt-clone — Voice Cloning from YouTube
Extract a voice from any YouTube video and set it as the active sample for voicecli clone.
v1.1: segment selection is now automated via sample-pick (silence-based VAD + scoring). Pass --start/--duration to override, or --blind to restore the pre-v1.1 naive trim.
Entry
/yt-clone https://youtu.be/XYZ # auto-pick clean segment
/yt-clone https://youtu.be/XYZ --start 30 --duration 25 # manual override
/yt-clone https://youtu.be/XYZ --blind # pre-v1.1 behavior (start=5, dur=30)
/yt-clone https://youtu.be/XYZ --slug my-voice --test "Bonjour, ceci est un test."
If no URL is provided → ask the user for one (plain text) and wait for reply.
Arguments
| Arg | Default | Description |
|---|
<url> | required | Any YouTube URL |
--start <sec> | auto-pick | Manual override — start offset in seconds (disables picker) |
--duration <sec> | auto-pick | Manual override — length of the sample to extract |
--slug <name> | derived from video ID | Sample name (used as filename) |
--test "<phrase>" | "Bonjour, ceci est un test de clonage de voix." | Phrase to generate after cloning |
--blind | off | Skip picker, use legacy defaults (start=5, duration=30) |
Step 1 — Parse Arguments
Extract URL and optional flags from $ARGUMENTS. Apply defaults for any missing args.
Derive --slug from the YouTube video ID if not provided (e.g. yt_XYZ).
Flag precedence guard — reject ambiguous combinations before doing anything:
--blind ∧ (--start ∨ --duration) → ERROR "--blind is exclusive with --start/--duration"
--start XOR --duration → ERROR "--start and --duration must be used together"
Enforce in bash before mode selection:
if [ -n "$BLIND" ] && { [ -n "$START" ] || [ -n "$DURATION" ]; }; then
echo "ERROR: --blind is exclusive with --start/--duration" >&2; exit 1
fi
if { [ -n "$START" ] && [ -z "$DURATION" ]; } || { [ -z "$START" ] && [ -n "$DURATION" ]; }; then
echo "ERROR: --start and --duration must be used together (or use neither for auto-pick)" >&2; exit 1
fi
Determine selection mode:
--start ∧ --duration ∃ → mode = "manual" (user override, skip picker)
--blind ∃ → mode = "blind" (start=5, duration=30, skip picker)
else → mode = "auto-pick" (run sample-pick on downloaded audio)
Step 2 — Check Dependencies
if ! command -v yt-dlp &>/dev/null; then
if ! python3 -m yt_dlp --version &>/dev/null; then
pip install yt-dlp -q
fi
fi
command -v ffmpeg &>/dev/null || { echo "ERROR: ffmpeg not found"; exit 1; }
if command -v voicecli &>/dev/null; then
VOICECLI="voicecli"
else
for d in ../voiceCLI ~/projects/voiceCLI; do
test -f "$d/src/voicecli/cli.py" && VOICECLI_DIR="$(cd "$d" && pwd)" && break
done
[ -z "$VOICECLI_DIR" ] && echo "ERROR: voicecli not found" && exit 1
VOICECLI="cd $VOICECLI_DIR && uv run voicecli"
fi
Step 3 — Check & Free VRAM
The TTS daemon (qwen-fast) uses ~7.4 GB and the STT daemon uses ~2.2 GB on the RTX 3080 (10 GB total).
When both run simultaneously, voicecli clone fails with CUDA OOM.
FREE_VRAM=$(nvidia-smi --query-gpu=memory.free --format=csv,noheader,nounits 2>/dev/null | tr -d ' ')
if [ -n "$FREE_VRAM" ] && [ "$FREE_VRAM" -lt 500 ]; then
echo "⚠ VRAM nearly full (${FREE_VRAM} MiB free) — stopping STT daemon..."
make -C ~/projects stt stop 2>/dev/null || true
sleep 2
FREE_VRAM=$(nvidia-smi --query-gpu=memory.free --format=csv,noheader,nounits | tr -d ' ')
echo " → ${FREE_VRAM} MiB free after stop"
STT_WAS_STOPPED=1
else
STT_WAS_STOPPED=0
fi
Step 4 — Download Audio
TMP_DIR=$(mktemp -d /tmp/yt_clone_XXXXXX)
yt-dlp -x --audio-format wav --audio-quality 0 \
-o "$TMP_DIR/audio.%(ext)s" \
"$URL" 2>&1
AUDIO_FILE=$(ls "$TMP_DIR"/*.wav 2>/dev/null | head -1)
[ -z "$AUDIO_FILE" ] && AUDIO_FILE=$(ls "$TMP_DIR"/* 2>/dev/null | head -1)
If download fails (private video, geo-block, etc.) → inform the user with the error and stop.
Step 4.5 — Auto-pick Segment (mode = auto-pick)
When no --start/--duration override, run the clean-segment picker on the full downloaded audio:
cd "$VOICECLI_DIR" && uv run python scripts/sample_pick.py "$AUDIO_FILE" \
--top 1 --min-duration 15 --out-dir "$TMP_DIR/.sample-pick"
Read top-1 candidate from $TMP_DIR/.sample-pick/candidates.json:
START=$(jq -r '.candidates[0].start' "$TMP_DIR/.sample-pick/candidates.json")
DURATION=$(jq -r '.candidates[0].duration' "$TMP_DIR/.sample-pick/candidates.json")
SCORE=$(jq -r '.candidates[0].score' "$TMP_DIR/.sample-pick/candidates.json")
DURATION=$(awk -v d="$DURATION" 'BEGIN{print (d > 30 ? 30 : d)}')
echo " auto-picked segment: start=${START}s · duration=${DURATION}s · score=${SCORE}"
Picker empty (exit 2) → fall back to blind defaults (START=5, DURATION=30), warn the user. This matches pre-v1.1 behavior.
Skipped for manual / blind modes.
Step 5 — Trim Sample
Extract the selected segment, normalized to mono 22 050 Hz:
SAMPLE="$TMP_DIR/${SLUG}.wav"
ffmpeg -i "$AUDIO_FILE" \
-ss "$START" -t "$DURATION" \
-ac 1 -ar 22050 \
"$SAMPLE" -y 2>&1
Auto-pick (default): segment is already scored for clean edges + mid-video position.
Manual override: user-provided --start/--duration — assumed correct, no check.
Blind mode: pre-v1.1 behavior, start=5 is a best-guess skip of intros/music.
Step 6 — Import Sample
$VOICECLI samples add "$SAMPLE"
$VOICECLI samples use "${SLUG}.wav"
Confirm with: $VOICECLI samples active
Step 7 — Generate Test Clone
$VOICECLI clone "$TEST_PHRASE" -e qwen-fast 2>&1
Capture the output path from the last line (Saved to ...) and report it.
Step 8 — Restore STT Daemon
if [ "$STT_WAS_STOPPED" = "1" ]; then
make -C ~/projects stt start 2>/dev/null || true
echo "✅ STT daemon restarted"
fi
Step 9 — Report
Show a summary:
✅ Voice cloned from: <video title if available>
Sample : ~/.roxabi/voicecli/TTS/samples/<slug>.wav (30s · mono · 22 050 Hz)
Engine : qwen-fast
Output : ~/.roxabi/voicecli/TTS/voices_out/...wav
To generate more with this voice:
voicecli clone "Your text here" -e qwen-fast
voicecli clone script.md -e qwen-fast
Error Handling
| Error | Cause | Fix |
|---|
Permission denied (publickey) | SSH config issue, unrelated | Ignore — not needed for yt-clone |
CUDA out of memory | STT daemon still running | Re-run Step 3 manually: make -C ~/projects stt stop |
No supported JavaScript runtime | yt-dlp warning, non-fatal | Safe to ignore — download proceeds |
ERROR: Video unavailable | Private/geo-blocked video | Try a different URL or use a VPN |
| Sample sounds wrong | Picker chose a bad segment (rare) | Re-run with --start <sec> --duration <sec> manual override |
no speech segments found | All-music video or unusually low-volume speech | Retry with --blind or manual --start/--duration |
Notes
- Sample quality is everything — 15–30s of clean speech without background music gives the best clone. The picker defaults to this range.
- Picker details — see
sample-pick for scoring rationale (duration · position · edge cleanliness) and how to call it standalone on local files.
- qwen-fast is the default engine — fastest, already warmed up in daemon. Switch to
chatterbox --lang French for multilingual with better accent fidelity.
- Active sample persists — once set, all future
voicecli clone calls reuse it until changed.
- The temporary download directory (
/tmp/yt_clone_*) is left for inspection. Clean with rm -rf /tmp/yt_clone_*.
$ARGUMENTS
