Skip to main content
NoteWise is a Python CLI tool that turns any YouTube video or playlist into structured, hierarchical Markdown study notes. Point it at a URL and walk away with deeply organized notes — chapter by chapter, section by section — generated by the LLM provider of your choice.

Quick Start

Install NoteWise and generate your first study notes in under 3 minutes.

Installation

All installation methods: uv, pipx, pip, standalone binary, and Docker.

CLI Reference

Every command, subcommand, and flag — with defaults and real examples.

Configuration

Configure your API key, model, output directory, concurrency, and more.

What NoteWise does

1

Fetch the transcript

NoteWise retrieves the YouTube transcript (with chapter markers if available) using yt-dlp — no browser required.
2

Chunk and process

For long videos, the transcript is split into overlapping chunks. Chapter-aware videos get dedicated notes per chapter.
3

Generate notes with your LLM

Each chunk is sent to the configured LLM (Gemini, OpenAI, Anthropic, Groq, and more) to produce structured Markdown — headers, definitions, examples, and key concepts.
4

Save to your filesystem

Notes are written as portable Markdown files to your chosen output directory — searchable and permanently yours.

Key features

Multi-provider LLM support

Works with Gemini, OpenAI, Anthropic, Groq, Mistral, Cohere, DeepSeek, and xAI via LiteLLM. Swap providers with a single flag.

Chapter-aware processing

Automatically detects video chapters and generates separate, structured notes per chapter for long lectures and courses.

Batch processing

Process a full playlist or a .txt file of URLs in one command, with configurable concurrency.

Quiz generation

Optionally generate a ready-to-use multiple-choice quiz alongside each set of study notes.

Local cache

Transcripts and run stats are cached in SQLite. Already-processed videos are skipped automatically.

CI/cron friendly

A --no-ui flag disables the Rich dashboard and outputs plain progress lines for scripting and automation.

Supported providers

NoteWise routes all LLM calls through LiteLLM, so any model string LiteLLM supports works out of the box. The default model is Gemini 2.5 Flash — get a free API key at aistudio.google.com.

LLM providers

See all supported providers and how to configure each one.

Configuration schema

Full reference for every configuration key and its default value.

Build docs developers (and LLMs) love