Gemini Notebook (NotebookLM)

notebooklm-pp-cli

Unofficial Go CLI for Gemini Notebook — notebooks, sources, chat, Studio artifacts, SQLite cache, and MCP via batchexecute RPC with Chrome session auth.

Printed by @SomSamantray (Som Samantray)

Install

npx — recommended

npx -y @mvanhorn/printing-press-library install notebooklm

Installs the CLI binary and the agent skill (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI, Copilot, and more). Add --cli-only or --skill-only for one half. Requires Node.

Hermes

hermes skills install mvanhorn/printing-press-library/cli-skills/pp-notebooklm --force

From the Hermes CLI. Inside a chat session use /skills install with the same path.

OpenClaw

Install the pp-notebooklm skill from https://github.com/mvanhorn/printing-press-library/tree/main/cli-skills/pp-notebooklm. The skill defines how its required CLI can be installed.

Paste this to your OpenClaw agent — the skill describes how to install its CLI.

View source on GitHub →

Unofficial Go CLI for Gemini Notebook — notebooks, sources, grounded chat, Studio artifacts, offline search, and MCP via batchexecute RPC with Chrome session auth.

Not affiliated with Google. Uses your personal Google session cookies. For personal use only.

Created by @SomSamantray.

Authentication

NotebookLM has no public API key. Authenticate once by importing Google session cookies from Chrome:

pip install pycookiecheat   # optional helper; browser-cookies also works
notebooklm-pp-cli auth login --chrome
notebooklm-pp-cli auth status --json

Cookies are stored at ~/.config/notebooklm-pp-cli/config.toml (mode 0600). Re-run login when doctor reports missing session tokens or live commands return empty results.

Alternative: notebooklm-pp-cli auth login --cookies-file ./cookie-header.txt

Quick Start

# Import Google session cookies from Chrome
notebooklm-pp-cli auth login --chrome

# Verify auth and session bootstrap
notebooklm-pp-cli doctor --json

# List notebooks
notebooklm-pp-cli notebook list --json

# Cache notebooks locally for offline search
notebooklm-pp-cli sync --json

# Ask a grounded question with citations
notebooklm-pp-cli chat ask "My Notebook" "Summarize the sources" --json

Known Gaps

whoami may return {} when Google’s user-settings RPC yields a null frame; tier/language parsing is best-effort.
chat history often returns [] immediately after chat ask because conversation indexing lags on Google’s side.
Studio supports quiz generation only; audio, slides, mind map, and download/export are not implemented yet.
share show is read-only; public/private mutations are not implemented yet.
Notes, file upload, YouTube/Drive sources, and research agents are planned (see repo plan doc).

Unique Features

These capabilities aren't available in any other tool for this API.

Auth

auth login — Import Google session cookies from Chrome without manual DevTools copying.

Use once after logging into Google in Chrome to enable all live commands.
```
notebooklm-pp-cli auth login --chrome
```

Local cache

search — Search synced notebooks locally by title or id without another API round-trip.

Use when you need fast recall across many notebooks in scripts.
```
notebooklm-pp-cli sync --json && notebooklm-pp-cli search "quarterly" --json
```

Chat

chat ask — Ask questions against notebook sources via streamed batchexecute RPC.

Use for agent loops that need cited answers from uploaded sources.
```
notebooklm-pp-cli chat ask "Research" "What are the main themes?" --json
```

Studio

studio generate-quiz — Kick off NotebookLM Studio quiz artifact generation and optionally wait for completion.

Use to produce study materials from a notebook's sources.
```
notebooklm-pp-cli studio generate-quiz "Research" --wait --json
```

Operations

doctor — Validate config, cookie presence, and session bootstrap tokens before live calls.

Run after auth login or when list commands return empty results.
```
notebooklm-pp-cli doctor --json
```

Commands

Domain	Commands
Auth	`auth login`, `auth status`
Notebooks	`notebook list`, `create`, `get`, `rename`, `delete`
Sources	`source list`, `add`, `delete`
Chat	`chat ask`, `chat history`
Studio	`studio list`, `studio generate-quiz`
Share	`share show`
Cache	`sync`, `search`
Account	`whoami`
Health	`doctor`, `version`
Agent	`mcp stdio` (MCP server)

Output Formats

notebooklm-pp-cli notebook list --json
notebooklm-pp-cli notebook list --dry-run
notebooklm-pp-cli chat ask "NB" "question" --json --agent

Agent Usage

Add --agent for JSON + non-interactive defaults (--json --no-input --yes).
Exit code 0 on success; non-zero on auth/RPC errors.
Use doctor --json before long agent loops to catch expired cookies.

Cookbook

# Create notebook and add Wikipedia source
notebooklm-pp-cli notebook create "Agent Research" --json
notebooklm-pp-cli source add "Agent Research" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NotebookLM --json

# Grounded Q&A with citations
notebooklm-pp-cli chat ask "Agent Research" "List three facts from the sources" --json

# Generate quiz and wait for completion
notebooklm-pp-cli studio generate-quiz "Agent Research" --wait --json

# Rename then delete (cleanup)
notebooklm-pp-cli notebook rename "Agent Research" "Agent Research (done)" --json
notebooklm-pp-cli notebook delete "Agent Research (done)" --json

# Offline search after sync
notebooklm-pp-cli sync --db ~/.local/share/notebooklm-pp-cli/cache.db --json
notebooklm-pp-cli search "Agent" --json

# Share visibility check
notebooklm-pp-cli share show "My Notebook" --json

# MCP stdio server for Claude Desktop / agents
notebooklm-pp-mcp

Health Check

$ notebooklm-pp-cli doctor --json
{
  "checks": [
    {"name": "go", "status": "ok", "detail": "go1.24.0"},
    {"name": "auth", "status": "ok", "detail": "/Users/you/.config/notebooklm-pp-cli/config.toml"},
    {"name": "session", "status": "ok", "detail": "bootstrap tokens"}
  ]
}

Configuration

Variable / file	Description
`~/.config/notebooklm-pp-cli/config.toml`	Cookie auth header (`auth_header`) and optional `base_url` override
`~/.local/share/notebooklm-pp-cli/cache.db`	SQLite notebook cache (override with `sync --db` / `search --db`)
`--config`	Alternate config file path

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Fix
`not authenticated`	`notebooklm-pp-cli auth login --chrome`
`null result` / empty lists	Re-login; confirm Google account has NotebookLM access in Chrome
`search` returns nothing	Run `sync --json` first
`pycookiecheat not installed`	`pip install pycookiecheat` or use `--cookies-file`

API-specific

notebook list returns empty or RPC errors — Re-run notebooklm-pp-cli auth login --chrome after logging into Google in Chrome, then doctor --json.
search returns no results — Run notebooklm-pp-cli sync --json first to populate the local cache.

Recipes

Create notebook and add a URL source

notebooklm-pp-cli notebook create "Agent Research" --json && notebooklm-pp-cli source add "Agent Research" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NotebookLM --json

Bootstrap a fresh notebook with a public web source.

Search cached notebooks

notebooklm-pp-cli search "research" --json

Find notebooks by title after running sync.

Development

go test ./...
go build ./cmd/notebooklm-pp-cli/

License

Apache-2.0