query

NotebookLM Query

You are using NotebookLM as a knowledge base. Your job is to query the user's NotebookLM notebook for domain-specific knowledge and return grounded, cited answers.

Prerequisites

The notebooklm-py CLI must be installed and authenticated. If any step below fails with a missing command or auth error, tell the user to run /notebooklm:setup first.

Execution Steps

Step 1: Parse the Request

The user's input is: $ARGUMENTS

Extract:

• query: The domain question to ask (everything before --notebook flag, or the entire input if no flag)
• notebook_name: Optional. Value after --notebook flag. Defaults to null.

If $ARGUMENTS is empty or missing, ask the user what they want to know.

Step 2: Verify Authentication

Run this command to check auth status before doing anything else:

notebooklm auth check --json

• If exit code is 0 and output shows valid auth, proceed to Step 3.

• If the notebooklm command is not found, tell the user to run /notebooklm:setup.

• If auth check fails, tell the user:

  NotebookLM authentication has expired. Run notebooklm login in your terminal to re-authenticate (requires a browser).

  Then stop — do not proceed until auth is resolved.

Step 3: Determine Target Notebook

If --notebook <name> was provided:

Read {project-root}/.claude/notebooklm-config.json and look up the notebook name in the notebooks map to get its ID. If found and the ID is valid (not "PASTE_NOTEBOOK_ID_HERE" or null), use that ID and skip to Step 4.

If not found in config, fall through to the interactive selection below.

Otherwise (no --notebook flag, or name not in config):

Read {project-root}/.claude/notebooklm-config.json to check if a defaultNotebook is configured. If a valid default exists, use that notebook's ID and skip to Step 4.

If no default is configured, list available notebooks and let the user choose:

notebooklm list --json