yt-transcript

YouTube Transcript Skill

Fetch transcripts from YouTube videos for analysis, summarization, or content processing.

When This Skill Activates

This skill automatically activates when:

• User asks to get, download, or extract YouTube transcripts
• User wants to summarize or analyze YouTube video content
• User mentions video captions or subtitles
• User needs to process YouTube video text content

Quick Start

Prerequisites

The skill requires youtube-transcript-api to be installed:

pip install youtube-transcript-api

Or with uv:

uv pip install youtube-transcript-api

Basic Usage

Fetch a single transcript (outputs to stdout):

python ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/yt-transcript/scripts/get_transcript.py "https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ"

Save to file:

python ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/yt-transcript/scripts/get_transcript.py "https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ" --output transcript.txt

Fetch multiple videos:

python ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/yt-transcript/scripts/get_transcript.py \
  "https://youtu.be/VIDEO_ID_1" \
  "https://youtu.be/VIDEO_ID_2" \
  --output transcripts.txt

Get transcript without timestamps:

python ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/yt-transcript/scripts/get_transcript.py "https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ" --no-timestamps

Supported URL Formats

The skill handles various YouTube URL formats:

• Short links: https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ
• Standard URLs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
• Embed URLs: https://www.youtube.com/embed/dQw4w9WgXcQ
• Video IDs only: dQw4w9WgXcQ
• URLs with parameters: https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ?si=abcd1234

Output Format

Default output includes timestamps:

# Transcript for https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ (Video ID: dQw4w9WgXcQ)

0.00  First line of the transcript
2.50  Second line of the transcript
5.00  Third line of the transcript

Without --no-timestamps flag, plain text output:

# Transcript for https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ (Video ID: dQw4w9WgXcQ)

First line of the transcript
Second line of the transcript
Third line of the transcript

Common Workflows

Analyze Video Content

# Fetch transcript
python ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/yt-transcript/scripts/get_transcript.py "https://youtu.be/VIDEO_ID" --output video.txt

# Now Claude can read and analyze the content

Summarize Multiple Videos

# Fetch all transcripts to one file
python ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/yt-transcript/scripts/get_transcript.py \
  "https://youtu.be/VIDEO1" \
  "https://youtu.be/VIDEO2" \
  "https://youtu.be/VIDEO3" \
  --output all_transcripts.txt

Extract Quotes or Key Points

# Get clean text without timestamps for easier processing
python ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/yt-transcript/scripts/get_transcript.py "https://youtu.be/VIDEO_ID" --no-timestamps > clean.txt

Troubleshooting

No Transcript Available

Some videos don't have transcripts available. The script will report:

Error: Could not fetch transcript for: <url>

This can happen when:

• The video has no captions/subtitles
• The video is private or restricted
• The transcript is disabled by the uploader

Transcripts Not Auto-Generated

YouTube auto-generates transcripts for many videos, but not all. If a video has no manual captions and no auto-generated captions, the transcript won't be available.

Rate Limiting

For bulk operations, you may encounter rate limiting. The script fetches one transcript at a time to minimize issues.

Requirements

• Python 3.8+
• youtube-transcript-api package
• Network access to YouTube's transcript servers

Script Options

usage: get_transcript.py [-h] [-o OUTPUT] [--no-timestamps] urls [urls ...]

positional arguments:
  urls                  YouTube video URL(s)

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -o OUTPUT, --output OUTPUT
                        Output file (default: stdout)
  --no-timestamps       Exclude timestamps from output

Examples

Get transcript for analysis

python ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/yt-transcript/scripts/get_transcript.py "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgbNymZ7vqY" --output talk.txt

Fetch clean text for summarization

python ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/yt-transcript/scripts/get_transcript.py "https://youtu.be/VIDEO_ID" --no-timestamps > summary_input.txt

Batch process a playlist's videos

# Build URLs from a list of video IDs
for vid in VIDEO_ID1 VIDEO_ID2 VIDEO_ID3; do
  python ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/yt-transcript/scripts/get_transcript.py "https://youtu.be/${vid}" --output "transcript_${vid}.txt"
done