Your first request

With the package installed, you can make a real request. We will fetch one video first because it gives us a small example with an easy-to-see result.

Create a file

Create a file named example.ts and add:

import { YouTube } from 'just-yt';

const yt = new YouTube();
const video = await yt.video('jNQXAC9IVRw');

console.log(video.title); // Me at the zoo
console.log(video.channel.name); // jawed
console.log(video.viewCount); // 403522943

await yt.close();

Run the file with your runtime:

bun run example.ts

npx tsx example.ts

What each line does

new YouTube() creates a client. It does not contact YouTube yet. The first method call creates a session, and later calls reuse that same session.

yt.video(...) accepts either an 11-character video ID or a common YouTube URL. It returns a Promise, so await pauses this function until the result is ready.

The result is a plain object. TypeScript knows that title is text and that a value YouTube may omit, such as viewCount, can be undefined.

if (video.viewCount !== undefined) {
  console.log(video.viewCount.toLocaleString());
} else {
  console.log('YouTube did not provide a view count');
}

An absent number does not mean zero. Keeping that distinction prevents a missing value from becoming a misleading value in your application.

Keep the client while you work

If your script makes more requests, do them before close():

const yt = new YouTube();

try {
  const video = await yt.video('jNQXAC9IVRw');
  const channel = await yt.channel(video.channel.id!);

  console.log(video.title, channel.title);
  // → Me at the zoo jawed
} finally {
  await yt.close();
}

The finally block runs whether the requests succeed or fail. Long-running servers normally keep one client open and close it only during application shutdown.

Next, learn why one shared client matters, then choose a feature such as search.