Video Ingest — via Inngest Pipeline
Videos are ingested through the Inngest event bus. Do not run yt-dlp, mlx-whisper, scp, or create vault notes manually. The pipeline handles everything: download → NAS transfer → transcription → vault note → summary enrichment.
Quick Start
joelclaw send pipeline/video.requested -d '{"url":"URL_HERE"}'
# legacy alias still accepted
joelclaw send pipeline/video.download -d '{"url":"URL_HERE"}'
That's it. The event chain handles the rest.
Alternative (raw curl):
curl -s -X POST "http://localhost:8288/e/$INNGEST_EVENT_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"name":"pipeline/video.requested","data":{"url":"URL_HERE"}}'
Pipeline Flow
pipeline/video.requested — you send this (legacy alias: pipeline/video.download)
↓
video-download function — yt-dlp → /tmp → NAS transfer
↓ emits
pipeline/video.downloaded — logged by system-logger
pipeline/transcript.requested — auto-triggered (legacy alias: pipeline/transcript.process)
↓
transcript-process function — mlx-whisper (M4 Pro, ~5min/hr of video)
↓ emits
pipeline/transcript.processed — logged
content/summarize.requested — auto-triggered (legacy alias: content/summarize)
↓
content-summarize function — pi enrichment → vault note with summary
↓ emits
content/summarized — logged, done
Before Sending: Health Check
Always verify the pipeline is healthy before sending events:
# Inngest server
curl -s http://localhost:8288/health
# Worker (should show functions including video-download)
curl -s http://localhost:3111/ | python3 -c "
import json,sys
d=json.load(sys.stdin)
fns = [f.get('id','?') for f in d.get('functions',[])]
print(f'Worker OK — {len(fns)} functions: {', '.join(fns)}')
"
# Docker container running
docker ps --filter ancestor=inngest/inngest --format "table {{.Status}}\t{{.Ports}}"
If the worker is down:
kubectl -n joelclaw rollout restart deployment/system-bus-worker
kubectl -n joelclaw rollout status deployment/system-bus-worker --timeout=180s
joelclaw refresh
Monitoring a Run
Watch progress in real-time
# Worker logs — shows step execution + failures
kubectl logs -n joelclaw deploy/system-bus-worker -f
# Docker logs — shows event dispatch
docker logs -f $(docker ps -q --filter ancestor=inngest/inngest) 2>&1 | grep -v DEBUG
Check if events fired
# Look for the video's events in Docker logs
docker logs $(docker ps -q --filter ancestor=inngest/inngest) 2>&1 | grep -i "video\|transcript\|summarize" | tail -20
Dashboard
Open http://localhost:8288 in browser — shows functions, events, runs with per-step traces.
Verify completion
# Check if vault note was created
ls -la ~/Vault/Resources/videos/*SLUG*
# Check canonical telemetry for pipeline entries
joelclaw otel search "video|transcript|summarize" --hours 24
Batch Ingest
Send multiple events. Inngest queues and processes them with concurrency control:
joelclaw send pipeline/video.requested -d '{"url":"https://youtube.com/watch?v=XXXX"}'
joelclaw send pipeline/video.requested -d '{"url":"https://youtube.com/watch?v=YYYY"}'
joelclaw send pipeline/video.requested -d '{"url":"https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZZZZ"}'
Manual Transcript (Non-YouTube)
For audio files already on disk, or raw text from Granola/Fathom:
# From audio file
joelclaw send pipeline/transcript.requested -d '{"source":"manual","audioPath":"/path/to/audio.mp4","title":"Recording Title","slug":"recording-title"}'
# From raw text (Granola, Fathom, etc.)
joelclaw send pipeline/transcript.requested -d '{"source":"granola","text":"transcript text...","title":"Meeting Title","slug":"meeting-title"}'
Re-run Summary Only
If the vault note exists but needs a better summary:
joelclaw send content/summarize.requested -d '{"vaultPath":"/Users/joel/Vault/Resources/videos/SLUG.md"}'
Options
| Field |
Default |
Description |
url |
required |
YouTube or video URL |
maxQuality |
"1080" |
Max video resolution: "720", "1080", "4k" |
Where Things End Up
| What |
Location |
| Video + metadata |
NAS: /volume1/home/joel/video/YYYY/SLUG/ |
| Vault note |
~/Vault/Resources/videos/SLUG.md |
| Daily note link |
~/Vault/Daily/YYYY-MM-DD.md under ## Videos |
| Runtime telemetry |
joelclaw otel (otel_events in Typesense/ClickHouse) |
| Durable source receipt |
Vault note plus the originating Inngest event/run |
Troubleshooting
If events are accepted (200 OK) but nothing happens:
- Check Docker→worker connectivity — the most common issue:
``bash docker logs $(docker ps -q --filter ancestor=inngest/inngest) 2>&1 | grep -E "ERROR|Unable" | tail -5 `` If you see "Unable to reach SDK URL" → see the inngest skill's serveHost gotcha.
- Check worker is actually running:
``bash kubectl get deploy -n joelclaw system-bus-worker kubectl get pods -n joelclaw -l app=system-bus-worker ``
- Check worker errors for the specific function:
``bash kubectl logs -n joelclaw deploy/system-bus-worker --tail=80 ``
- Use inngest-debug skill for deep inspection of specific run IDs via GraphQL.
What NOT to Do
- ❌ Don't run
yt-dlp directly — the pipeline handles download + NAS transfer
- ❌ Don't run
mlx_whisper directly — the pipeline handles transcription
- ❌ Don't
scp to NAS manually — the pipeline handles transfer
- ❌ Don't create vault notes manually — the pipeline creates them with proper frontmatter
- ❌ Don't use codex/background tasks for video processing — Inngest is durable and has retries