Picoclaw summarize

Summarize or extract text/transcripts from URLs, podcasts, and local files (great fallback for “transcribe this YouTube/video”).

install

source · Clone the upstream repo

git clone https://github.com/sipeed/picoclaw

Claude Code · Install into ~/.claude/skills/

T=$(mktemp -d) && git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/sipeed/picoclaw "$T" && mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && cp -r "$T/workspace/skills/summarize" ~/.claude/skills/sipeed-picoclaw-summarize && rm -rf "$T"

manifest: workspace/skills/summarize/SKILL.md

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-only

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

Model + keys

Set the API key for your chosen provider:

OpenAI:
```
OPENAI_API_KEY
```
Anthropic:
```
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY
```
xAI:
```
XAI_API_KEY
```

Google:

GEMINI_API_KEY

(aliases:

GOOGLE_GENERATIVE_AI_API_KEY

GOOGLE_API_KEY

)

Default model is

google/gemini-3-flash-preview

if none is set.

Useful flags

--length short|medium|long|xl|xxl|<chars>

```
--max-output-tokens <count>
```
```
--extract-only
```
(URLs only)
```
--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

{ "model": "openai/gpt-5.4" }

Optional services:

```
FIRECRAWL_API_KEY
```
for blocked sites
```
APIFY_API_TOKEN
```
for YouTube fallback