| name | yt-transcribe |
| description | Fetch a single YouTube video's transcript and summarize it. One-shot — paste a URL or video ID, get a journalist-grade summary. Same transcript engine (and WARP proxy support) as the /yt briefing loop; no channels, no state, no rating. |
| argument-hint | URL or VIDEO_ID. Optional --lang pl|en|auto (defaults to auto). |
Step 1 — Fetch the transcript
bun run src/yt-transcript.ts <VIDEO_ID_OR_URL> --lang <lang>
- First argument: URL or VIDEO_ID straight from the user — the script parses both formats (
youtube.com/watch?v=…, youtu.be/…, or a bare 11-char ID).
--lang selects which caption track to fetch (the input), not the summary language. auto
by default (best available track); pass pl / en only if the user wants a specific track.- The transcript goes to stdout; stderr carries diagnostics. Run it bare — no redirects.
Exit codes — the message you show the user must match the real cause. Never report a
tooling failure as "no subtitles". When the code is non-zero, read the script's stderr
and surface that actual reason; do not paraphrase it away.
0 — transcript on stdout → continue to Step 2.1 → the video genuinely has no subtitles. Tell the user exactly that and stop.2 → YouTube rate-limit / IP block (common on datacenter/VPS IPs). Tell the user and
stop; it's transient. Recovery: route fetches through a proxy — see
docs/warp-proxy.md (set YT_BRIEFING_PROXY).3 → tooling/integration failure (yt-dlp missing, fetch error, unavailable or private
video, empty/unparseable track, bad input). This is NOT a missing-captions case.
Show the stderr line verbatim so the user sees the real problem, and stop.
Step 2 — Summary
Read the transcript from the tool result and respond as a narrative.
- Header: title, author, date
- One introductory sentence
- One paragraph per significant thread — a bold label + continuous prose, concrete facts. Preserve the logic and rhetoric of the original.
- Verdict: what's strong, what's weak, whether it was worth it
Style:
- an intelligent journalist — not like an AI assistant summarizing an article
- no generalities, always specifics: what was the thesis, what was the argument
- if the material has a clear host and guests, show that in the text
Language: Read data/config.json → output_lang once and write the summary in that
language — the same language chosen at onboarding that /yt uses. Order of precedence:
(1) a language the user explicitly asks for in this request wins; (2) otherwise output_lang
from config; (3) only if config is missing, match the language of the video. This is the
output language and is independent of --lang (which only picks the caption track to
fetch). Don't mix languages: write fully in the target language and insert foreign words only
when they are (a) a proper name of a technology/product, or (b) an established technical term
with no natural equivalent (API, REST, JSON, webhook, endpoint). Translate everything else.
Rules
- Transcripts: never paste the raw transcript into chat — the summary is the artifact.
- One-shot, stateless: this skill reads no channels, writes no state, asks for no rating.
It is independent of the
/yt briefing loop, though it shares the same transcript engine
and proxy. For the recurring channel briefing, use /yt instead.
