| name | youtube-transcript |
| description | Fetch transcripts from YouTube videos. Use when user says "get transcript", "fetch transcript", "YouTube transcript", "pull captions", "what does this video say", or pastes a YouTube URL and wants the text content extracted. Also use when user wants to research or summarize a YouTube video. |
YouTube Transcript Extractor
Fetch and return transcripts from YouTube videos using the bundled Python script.
When to Activate
- User pastes a YouTube URL and wants the transcript
- User asks to "get the transcript" or "fetch captions" for a video
- User wants to research, summarize, or extract learnings from a YouTube video
- User provides multiple YouTube URLs for batch transcript extraction
How It Works
Step 1: Extract the transcript
Run the script with the video URL or ID:
uv run .claude/skills/youtube-transcript/scripts/get_transcript.py "VIDEO_URL_OR_ID"
For timestamped output:
uv run .claude/skills/youtube-transcript/scripts/get_transcript.py "VIDEO_URL_OR_ID" --timestamps
Step 2: Handle the output
Supported URL formats:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_IDhttps://youtu.be/VIDEO_IDhttps://www.youtube.com/embed/VIDEO_ID- Raw 11-character video ID
Output rules:
- Never modify the returned transcript text. Present it exactly as returned.
- When timestamps are not used, arrange the raw text into coherent paragraphs by topic for readability.
- When timestamps are used, keep the
[MM:SS] or [HH:MM:SS] format as-is.
Step 3: Save if requested
If the user asks to save the transcript:
- Default filename:
{video_id}-transcript.txt
- Save to the location the user specifies, or to the current working directory
Multiple Videos
When given multiple URLs, run the script for each video sequentially. Present each transcript with a clear heading identifying the video.
Limitations
- Requires the video to have captions enabled (manual or auto-generated)
- Will not work on videos with captions disabled
- Auto-generated captions may contain transcription errors - flag this to the user
- Requires Python 3.10+ and
uv installed locally
