r-dlp

Glyph's own fast YouTube audio resolver, written in Rust.

r-dlp turns a YouTube video ID into a direct audio URL. It implements only the small part of yt-dlp that Glyph needs, so it starts and answers much faster. The desktop app and the companion use it when it is available and fall back to yt-dlp otherwise.

In Glyph's benchmarks the median resolution time dropped from about 3.1 s to 0.8 s for a fresh process and from 1.1 s to 0.06 s for a warm one. This is resolver time, not the full time from click to sound.

Use

r-dlp dQw4w9WgXcQ               # metadata and audio URL as JSON
r-dlp --get-url dQw4w9WgXcQ     # URL only
r-dlp --verify dQw4w9WgXcQ      # also read 1024 real audio bytes
r-dlp serve                     # persistent JSON-lines mode on stdin/stdout
r-dlp serve --warmup            # prime the connection before the first request

Serve mode

serve prints {"ready":true,"version":"..."} at start. Send one {"id":"<video id>"} line per request; each answer carries the same ID and either url plus metadata or error. One process handles requests one after another; start several for parallel work. Closing stdin stops it.

Formats

r-dlp picks the highest-bitrate direct MP4 audio first, then Vorbis. Opus, encrypted formats and translated audio tracks are skipped.

Limits

Not supported: search, playlists, subtitles, downloads, other sites, age-restricted or signed-in videos, live streams and signature deciphering. Keep yt-dlp installed as the fallback. A returned URL must be used from the same public IP and before it expires.

Build

git clone https://github.com/glyphmusic/r-dlp.git
cd r-dlp
cargo build --release --locked

Source and releases: glyphmusic/r-dlp.

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