Fast CLI for summarizing anything you can point at:

• Web pages (article extraction; Firecrawl fallback if sites block agents)
• YouTube links (best-effort transcripts, optional Apify fallback)
• Remote files (PDFs/images/audio/video via URL — downloaded and forwarded to the model)
• Local files (PDFs/images/audio/video/text — forwarded or inlined; support depends on provider/model)

It streams output by default on TTY and renders Markdown to ANSI (via markdansi). At the end it prints a single “Finished in …” line with timing, token usage, and a best-effort cost estimate (when pricing is available).

• npx (no install):

npx -y @steipete/summarize "https://example.com" --model google/gemini-3-flash-preview

• Homebrew (custom tap):

brew install steipete/tap/summarize

summarize "https://example.com" --model google/gemini-3-flash-preview

Input can be a URL or a local file path:

npx -y @steipete/summarize "/path/to/file.pdf" --model google/gemini-3-flash-preview
npx -y @steipete/summarize "/path/to/image.jpeg" --model google/gemini-3-flash-preview

Remote file URLs work the same (best-effort; the file is downloaded and passed to the model):

npx -y @steipete/summarize "https://example.com/report.pdf" --model google/gemini-3-flash-preview

YouTube (supports youtube.com and youtu.be):

npx -y @steipete/summarize "https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ" --youtube auto

This is “best effort” and depends on what your selected model/provider accepts. In practice these usually work well:

• text/* and common structured text (.txt, .md, .json, .yaml, .xml, …)
  • text-like files are inlined into the prompt (instead of attached as a file part) for better provider compatibility
• PDFs: application/pdf (provider support varies; Google is the most reliable in this CLI right now)
• Images: image/jpeg, image/png, image/webp, image/gif
• Audio/Video: audio/*, video/* (when supported by the model)

Notes:

• If a provider rejects a media type, the CLI fails fast with a friendly message (no “mystery stack traces”).
• xAI models currently don’t support attaching generic files (like PDFs) via the AI SDK; use a Google/OpenAI/Anthropic model for those.

Use “gateway-style” ids: <provider>/<model>.

Examples:

• openai/gpt-5.2
• anthropic/claude-opus-4-5
• xai/grok-4-fast-non-reasoning
• google/gemini-3-flash-preview

Note: some models/providers don’t support streaming or certain file media types. When that happens, the CLI prints a friendly error (or auto-disables streaming for that model when supported by the provider).

--length controls how much output we ask for (guideline), not a hard truncation.

npx -y @steipete/summarize "https://example.com" --length long
npx -y @steipete/summarize "https://example.com" --length 20k

• Presets: short|medium|long|xl|xxl
• Character targets: 1500, 20k, 20000
• Optional hard cap: --max-output-tokens <count> (e.g. 2000, 2k)
  • Provider/model APIs still enforce their own maximum output limits.
• Minimums: --length numeric values must be ≥ 50 chars; --max-output-tokens must be ≥ 16.

• Text inputs over 10 MB are rejected before tokenization.
• Text prompts are preflighted against the model’s input limit (LiteLLM catalog), using a GPT tokenizer.

npx -y @steipete/summarize <input> [flags]

• --model <provider/model>: which model to use (defaults to google/gemini-3-flash-preview)
• --timeout <duration>: 30s, 2m, 5000ms (default 2m)
• --length short|medium|long|xl|xxl|<chars>
• --max-output-tokens <count>: hard cap for LLM output tokens (optional)
• --stream auto|on|off: stream LLM output (auto = TTY only; disabled in --json mode)
• --render auto|md-live|md|plain: Markdown rendering (auto = best default for TTY)
• --extract-only: print extracted content and exit (no summary) — only for URLs
• --json: machine-readable output with diagnostics, prompt, metrics, and optional summary
• --verbose: debug/diagnostics on stderr
• --metrics off|on|detailed: metrics output (default on; detailed prints a breakdown to stderr)

Non-YouTube URLs go through a “fetch → extract” pipeline. When the direct fetch/extraction is blocked or too thin, --firecrawl auto can fall back to Firecrawl (if configured).

• --firecrawl off|auto|always (default auto)
• --markdown off|auto|llm (default auto; only affects --extract-only for non-YouTube URLs)
• Plain-text mode: use --firecrawl off --markdown off.

--youtube auto tries best-effort web transcript endpoints first, then falls back to Apify only if APIFY_API_TOKEN is set.

Apify uses a single actor (faVsWy9VTSNVIhWpR). It costs money but tends to be more reliable.

Single config location:

• ~/.summarize/config.json

Supported keys today:

{
  "model": "openai/gpt-5.2"
}

Precedence:

1. --model
2. SUMMARIZE_MODEL
3. ~/.summarize/config.json
4. default

Set the key matching your chosen --model:

• OPENAI_API_KEY (for openai/...)
• ANTHROPIC_API_KEY (for anthropic/...)
• XAI_API_KEY (for xai/...)
• GEMINI_API_KEY (for google/...)
  • also accepts GOOGLE_GENERATIVE_AI_API_KEY and GOOGLE_API_KEY as aliases

OpenRouter (OpenAI-compatible):

• Set OPENAI_BASE_URL=https://openrouter.ai/api/v1
• Prefer OPENROUTER_API_KEY=... (instead of reusing OPENAI_API_KEY)
• Use OpenRouter models via the openai/... prefix, e.g. --model openai/xiaomi/mimo-v2-flash:free

Optional services:

• FIRECRAWL_API_KEY (website extraction fallback)
• APIFY_API_TOKEN (YouTube transcript fallback)

The CLI uses the LiteLLM model catalog for model limits (like max output tokens):

• Downloaded from: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/BerriAI/litellm/main/model_prices_and_context_window.json
• Cached at: ~/.summarize/cache/

This package also exports a small library:

• @steipete/summarize/content
• @steipete/summarize/prompts

pnpm install
pnpm check