> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://notewise.click/docs/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Pipeline and output

> Understand how NoteWise processes YouTube inputs and writes output artifacts.

The processing path is implemented by `CorePipeline` and the pipeline execution helpers.

## Processing flow

<Steps>
  <Step title="Cache check">
    Unless `--force` is set, NoteWise checks the SQLite cache before metadata or
    transcript work.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Metadata and transcript">
    NoteWise resolves YouTube metadata, captions, transcript segments, chapters,
    and playlist context when applicable.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Generation">
    Transcript text is chunked with source defaults `4000` size and `200`
    overlap, then sent to the configured LiteLLM model.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Artifacts">
    NoteWise writes notes, optional quizzes, optional transcript exports, and
    rendered formats.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Persistence">
    Run stats, output paths, transcript content, tokens, costs, and timings are
    persisted to SQLite when possible.
  </Step>
</Steps>

## Chapter behavior

Videos with YouTube chapters use chapter-aware generation. Without `--chapter-directory-output`, the result is still bundled into a final notes file. With `--chapter-directory-output`, NoteWise writes per-chapter Markdown files into a folder and stores `.notewise-output.json` ownership metadata.

## Output formats

| Format | Behavior                                                                         |
| ------ | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `md`   | Raw Markdown notes. Default.                                                     |
| `html` | Markdown rendered with built-in CSS.                                             |
| `pdf`  | Uses `fpdf`; Latin-script text only. Unsupported Unicode falls back to Markdown. |
| `docx` | Uses `html2docx` and `python-docx`.                                              |

## File layout

<Tree>
  <Tree.Folder name="output" defaultOpen>
    <Tree.File name="Video Title.md" />

    <Tree.File name="Video Title.html" />

    <Tree.File name="Video Title.docx" />

    <Tree.File name="Video Title_quiz.md" />

    <Tree.File name="Video Title_transcript.json" />

    <Tree.Folder name="Video Title" defaultOpen>
      <Tree.File name="01_Introduction.md" />

      <Tree.File name="02_Main Topic.md" />

      <Tree.File name=".notewise-output.json" />
    </Tree.Folder>
  </Tree.Folder>
</Tree>

Filenames are sanitized and capped at 100 characters. Batch collisions may append the video ID.