sans_yt_summary

sans-yt-summary

Built by SansWord

TL;DR — Paste a YouTube URL and get a structured summary saved to your project. Can also fetch transcripts on their own, or summarize a transcript file you already have.

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Ever watched a long YouTube video just to find out it wasn't worth your time? sans-yt-summary is a Claude Code plugin that summarizes any YouTube video for you — just paste the URL and ask. No extra tools, no API key, no copy-pasting transcripts.

The summary includes a structured overview, key points with clickable timestamp links that jump directly to the moment in the video, and notable takeaways. Everything is saved as a Markdown file you can keep, search, or share.

Why use this?

• No API key needed — Claude summarizes directly inside your session
• Transcript-based — works with auto-generated captions, no audio processing
• Clickable timestamps — every key point links back to the exact moment in the video
• Customizable — bring your own prompt to change the language, format, or focus
• Works with any YouTube URL — standard, live, shorts, and youtu.be links

How it works

1. You give Claude a YouTube URL and ask it to summarize
2. The skill fetches the transcript using yt-dlp
3. Claude reads the transcript and produces a structured summary
4. The summary is saved as a .md file in your current directory

Requirements

• Claude Code
• yt-dlp installed on your system
• Chrome browser (for exporting YouTube cookies on first run)

Install yt-dlp via Homebrew (macOS):

brew install yt-dlp

Install

claude plugins marketplace add SansWord/sans_yt_summary
claude plugins install sans-yt-summary@sans_yt_summary

Usage

In any Claude Code session, share a YouTube URL and ask for a summary:

"Summarize this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID"

Claude will:

1. List the available transcript languages and ask which to use
2. Fetch the transcript (exporting Chrome cookies on first run — you'll see a macOS Keychain prompt)
3. Save a <Video_Title>_summary.md to your current directory

Example prompts

Summarize this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID

Just fetch the transcript: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID

Summarize abc123.txt

I want to customize the YouTube summary prompt

Use tweet.md to summarize https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID

Use examples/just-do-it/prompts/key-quotes.md to summarize https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID

Cookies

The first time you run the skill, it exports your YouTube cookies from Chrome to .youtube_cookies.txt in your current directory. This file contains session tokens — keep it out of version control. The .gitignore in this repo already excludes it, but if you're working in a different project directory:

echo ".youtube_cookies.txt" >> .gitignore

Subsequent runs reuse the cached file. Re-run the skill after a week or two if YouTube starts blocking requests — cookies expire.

Custom prompt

To override the default summarization prompt, create summarize_prompts/summarize.md in your working directory. The skill will use your version instead of the built-in one.

Use skills/sans-yt-summary/summarize_prompts/summarize_template.md as a starting point:

mkdir -p summarize_prompts
cp ~/.claude/plugins/sans-yt-summary/summarize_prompts/summarize_template.md summarize_prompts/summarize.md
# Edit summarize_prompts/summarize.md to your liking

The summary language follows your prompt language — write the prompt in French to get a French summary.

You can also use any .md file as a one-off prompt without changing your default:

Use tweet.md to summarize https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID

The skill looks for the file in summarize_prompts/, then the project root, then the plugin's built-in prompts.

Examples

The examples/ folder contains ready-to-use prompt variations with sample outputs on the same video — a good starting point for building your own custom prompt.

Running tests

pip install -r requirements.txt
pytest tests/

Supported URL formats

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID
https://www.youtube.com/live/VIDEO_ID
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/VIDEO_ID
https://youtu.be/VIDEO_ID

Security note

.youtube_cookies.txt contains your YouTube session tokens in plaintext. The .gitignore in this repo excludes it by default. Never commit this file.

Disclaimer