yt-cmd

What it is

yt-cmd is the terminal piece of the HOLEN suite. It wraps yt-dlp in a small interactive prompt so you can paste a URL, pick video or audio, choose quality, and download without memorising a wall of flags.

The npm package is currently called holen-dl. The older command names still work.

Run it

npx holen-dl

Aliases:

npx yvm-yt
npx yt-cmd

Choose from quality presets or a custom resolution, then select MP4, MKV, or MP3. Video downloads prefer MP4 and can fall back to MKV; audio downloads are MP3. Files are saved to ~/Downloads.

Tech stack and flow

interactive Node.js CLI → yt-dlp format selection → FFmpeg merge/convert → ~/Downloads

Part	Technology
Runtime/distribution	Node.js and npm
Source support	yt-dlp
Muxing/conversion	FFmpeg
User experience	Interactive terminal prompts

The CLI looks for yt-dlp and can help fetch it. FFmpeg is needed for many video/audio combinations and should be installed on the system if the automatic setup cannot do it.

Troubleshooting

A URL is unsupported: source sites change. Update the package and check whether the URL is public and supported by the current yt-dlp release.

The output is MKV: the requested MP4 combination was not available or could not be safely merged. MKV is the fallback because it can contain more stream combinations without re-encoding.

The command cannot write the file: check ~/Downloads permissions and free disk space.

FFmpeg is missing: install it with your OS package manager and run the command again.

Develop

git clone https://github.com/YashasVM/yt-cmd.git
cd yt-cmd
npm install
npm run dev
npm run check

Responsible use

Use this for media you own or are allowed to save. It does not bypass DRM, private content, logins, age gates, or access controls, and you are responsible for following the source platform's terms.