Skill

podscan

Podscan REST API — search 51M+ podcast episodes and 4.4M+ podcasts. Full transcripts, AI-extracted entities,...

Verified: 2026-05-13 (printing-press-ingest-2026-05-13+enrich-capability-skill)

When to use podscan

Choose if

You're running brand-monitoring, market-intel, or research workflows that need to search across millions of podcast transcripts (51M+ episodes / 4.4M+ podcasts) with AI-extracted entities and brand-safety scoring. Compared to raw RSS scraping, Podscan delivers searchable full transcripts agents can reason over. Requires an existing Podscan API credential.

Avoid if

You don't have a Podscan API key (no documented free tier), or your target podcasts aren't in the Podscan catalog — the CLI surface only reaches shows Podscan has indexed. Also avoid if the agent needs to publish/upload audio; this is read-only search + alert management.

Risk Flags

  • MEDIUM auth Upstream Podscan API requires an API credential. Without it, every endpoint returns exit code 4. The CLI binary itself is free, but no request reaches the API without the key.
  • MEDIUM rate_limit Upstream API enforces rate limits — surfaced via exit code 7 — but the README does not disclose concrete thresholds. Agents on heavy workloads must back off on 7 and watch their account dashboard.
  • LOW scope Coverage is the Podscan catalog: 51M+ episodes and 4.4M+ podcasts. Shows not indexed by Podscan are invisible to the agent regardless of public RSS availability.
  • LOW runtime macOS pre-built binary needs Gatekeeper quarantine removal; Unix path needs an executable bit set. Sandboxed runtimes without Node may need the GitHub-release binary route.

Cost

Type: Usage based · Free tier: No free tier on the upstream API documented. Missing/invalid credentials cause exit code 4 immediately.

Hidden costs

  • The CLI is free; the upstream Podscan REST API requires a credential (paid plan). Tier pricing not disclosed in the README — check podscan.fm for current rates.

Install

Default

npx -y @mvanhorn/printing-press install podscan
# Set the upstream API credential before any endpoint works:
export PODSCAN_API_KEY=<your-key>

Setup docs →

Estimated time to first success: ~10 min

Dependencies

Minimum runtime: Node.js 18+ (or pre-built binary for macOS/Linux)

Distribution

Repository
https://github.com/mvanhorn/printing-press-library
License
MIT