🔱 PINAK CLI 1.4.4 — Media Content Downloader

PINAK CLI is a powerful, highly aesthetic command-line media downloader wrapper around yt-dlp and ffmpeg. It features a rich, interactive REPL shell with auto-completions, suggestions, customized banners, diagnostic tools, and automatic download tracking.

The current operating guide covers local playback, authenticated IPC, configuration precedence, lock files, release artifacts and recovery limits. The release readiness record records release fixes and verification.

🚀 Key Features

• Interactive REPL Shell: Features a terminal command prompt with auto-completions, command suggestions, and command history.
• Aesthetic UI: Powered by rich and prompt-toolkit with vibrant color themes, tables, custom progress bars, and desktop toast notifications.
• Media Formats: Download as best-quality video, select resolutions (360p, 720p, 1080p, etc.), or convert directly to high-quality MP3 audio.
• Local-First & Private: All data, settings, and download histories remain strictly local on your machine with zero remote tracking.
• Self-Diagnostics: High-detail environmental doctor checks (/doctor) to verify internet, dependencies, rate limits, and configuration.
• Local SQLite History: Keeps record of your download URLs, sizes, durations, and output paths in a local SQLite database (history.db).

📦 Directory Structure

cli/
├── pinak/                      # Core Package Folder
│   ├── __init__.py
│   ├── __main__.py             # Entry point (python -m pinak)
│   ├── cli.py                  # REPL Interactive Shell & Typer CLI handler
│   ├── commands/               # Modular REPL & info subcommands
│   ├── media/                  # Local playback, native windows, subtitles and IPC
│   ├── downloader.py           # yt-dlp & FFmpeg downloader logic
│   ├── config.py               # Application configurations (Pydantic-Settings)
│   ├── history.py              # SQLite storage & local tracking
│   ├── doctor.py               # Dependencies & connection diagnostics
│   ├── ffmpeg_setup.py         # Static FFmpeg installer utility
│   ├── notify.py               # Desktop notifications & terminal banners
│   ├── updater.py              # Update checker
│   └── utils.py                # Formatting & utility helpers
├── tests/                      # Automated test suite (pytest)
├── pyproject.toml              # Pyproject packaging config
├── requirements-lock.txt       # Locked dependencies for reproducible installs
├── requirements-runtime-lock.txt # Runtime dependency lock
├── tools/                      # Installation and release-version checks
├── OPERATIONS.md               # Current operating guide
├── CHANGELOG.md                # Maintained release history
├── Dockerfile                  # Container image (ffmpeg included)
├── .dockerignore               # Docker build ignore patterns
└── LICENSE                     # MIT license

Note: FFmpeg is not bundled with the PyPI package. See FFmpeg setup below — one command installs it.

🛠️ Installation & Setup

Requirements

• Python 3.10 or higher.
• FFmpeg (see FFmpeg setup — one command).

Step 1: Install from PyPI

pip install pinak-cli
# recommended (isolated, always on PATH):
pipx install pinak-cli

This registers the global pinak command. From source (developers):

cd cli
pip install -e ".[dev]"

Clone Prince-1005/Pinak-CLI first and use a virtual environment. PyPI installs the latest published version, which can differ from the current source before release.

For playback on Debian/Ubuntu:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y ffmpeg libportaudio2 python3-tk

Tkinter must match the selected Python interpreter. Windows/macOS pip installs of SoundDevice include PortAudio; Linux may need the system package above. See the playback prerequisite guide for optional OpenCV and headless systems.

Step 2: Test Command

pinak --doctor
pinak

pinak not found after install? Your Python Scripts folder isn't on PATH. Either add it, use pipx install pinak-cli, or run python -m pinak instead — it works identically. pinak --doctor includes a "CLI on PATH" check that tells you exactly what to do.

🎞️ FFmpeg setup

FFmpeg merges formats and extracts MP3s. Pick one option:

pinak --install-ffmpeg        # single-command mode: downloads a static build
/ffmpeg                        # same thing, inside the interactive REPL
pip install "pinak-cli[ffmpeg]"  # manual equivalent (static-ffmpeg extra)

Or install FFmpeg system-wide (ffmpeg.org/download) and make sure it is on PATH. Docker users already have it (cli/Dockerfile).

🔄 Keeping everything fresh

Sites change often; an outdated yt-dlp is the #1 cause of sudden failures. Pinak checks PyPI in the background (max once per day) and notifies you — about new yt-dlp and new Pinak releases. Inside the REPL, update both any time with:

/update

This runs pip install --upgrade yt-dlp and pip install --upgrade pinak-cli, tells you exactly what changed (Updated … 1.0.0 → 1.1.0 vs already the latest), and — if Pinak itself was upgraded — asks you to restart the CLI (/exit, then run pinak again) so the new version loads.

💻 CLI Commands

When running the interactive REPL shell (pinak), the following commands are available:

⚙️ Configuration File

Subtitle languages and playback

Use /subs_lang for the language picker, or /subs_lang list to see language codes. Save one to three languages with, for example, /subs_lang hi en es. Preferences are stored locally in the same config.json as the system settings and appear in /config. The default language is English (en).

Use /subs on to enable subtitle downloads and /subs off to disable them; /subs without an argument toggles the setting. Downloads request only the selected language codes, prefer creator-provided captions over automatic captions for the same code, and skip languages the video does not offer. Regional codes are explicit choices (for example, en-US or pt-BR). Missing subtitles do not prevent downloading the video. Subtitle conversion and embedding require FFmpeg. HTTP 429 stops immediate retries and reports the platform's rate limit.

In the TUI video player, subtitles begin off. Press c to show the first available track, press it again to advance through tracks, and press it after the last track to turn subtitles off. Another c starts the cycle again. The player reads embedded subtitles and matching .srt/.vtt sidecar files; it does not fetch new languages during playback.

Pinak CLI saves user-specific configuration (like download directory, quality, retry counts) in a standard configuration folder (via platformdirs).

• Windows: %LOCALAPPDATA%\pinak\pinak-cli\config.json
• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/pinak-cli/config.json
• Linux: ~/.config/pinak-cli/config.json
• SQLite history: platformdirs.user_data_dir("pinak-cli", "pinak")/history.db; on Linux this is normally ~/.local/share/pinak-cli/history.db, separate from configuration.

Run pinak --config-path anywhere to print your exact path, or /config inside the REPL (the path is shown above the table). Change the output folder with /setout <absolute_path>.

🔒 Privacy & Local-First

Pinak CLI is strictly local-first and privacy-focused. All configuration, download history, and media files remain on your local machine. No external tracking or telemetry is performed.

⚖️ Educational Purpose & Legal Disclaimer

Pinak CLI is developed as an educational project, technical study of CLI architecture, and personal-archiving tool wrapper around yt-dlp and ffmpeg. You are solely responsible for how you use it:

• Personal Archival Only: Only download content you own, that is freely licensed (e.g., Creative Commons), or that you have explicit permission to save.
• Terms of Service: Automated downloading may violate the Terms of Service of platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, or TikTok; your account or IP could be restricted by those platforms. Use at your own risk.
• Be Excellent to Creators: Do not use this tool to pirate, redistribute, or monetize copyrighted material without authorization. Always support and respect creators.
• No DRM Circumvention: Pinak CLI does not bypass or defeat Digital Rights Management (DRM) or access restrictions.
• Limitation of Liability: The authors provide this software "as is" under the MIT License and accept no liability for misuse.