Command reference

summarize is one binary with a handful of subcommands. The default subcommand is summarize itself — the one you use 99% of the time. The others wrap related tooling.

#Subcommands

• summarize — main command. Takes a URL, file, or stdin and produces a summary or extracted content.
• summarize status — print the selected model, enabled providers, and runtime status.
• summarize slides — extract scene-change keyframes from a YouTube URL, direct video URL, or local video file into PNGs (and optional OCR text). Standalone version of the --slides flag.
• summarize transcriber — set up local ONNX transcription (Parakeet, Canary). Prints the env vars you need.
• summarize daemon — manage the local HTTP daemon that the Chrome Side Panel talks to. Subcommands: install, restart, status, uninstall, run.
• summarize refresh-free — scan OpenRouter :free models, write working candidates to ~/.summarize/config.json.
• summarize help [topic] — print help for the CLI or a subcommand (slides, status, daemon, transcriber, refresh-free).

#Output discipline

All subcommands keep the same output discipline — straight from gogcli's playbook so pipes and scripts stay parseable:

• stdout: the result. Plain text, Markdown, JSON, or files (slides only).
• stderr: progress, prompts, warnings, and errors.
• --json produces a stable envelope on stdout.
• --no-color strips ANSI; --plain skips ANSI/OSC rendering for Markdown.

#Global behavior

Only two flags apply to every subcommand; the rest are per-command:

#Exit codes

summarize daemon and summarize transcriber still exit 1 when the underlying service install (launchd, systemd, schtasks) fails; the platform's own error text is included in the message — check --verbose output for the raw error.