transcribe-youtube

name	transcribe-youtube
description	Use when the user asks to transcribe a YouTube video, get a YouTube transcript, or download/save a transcript from a YouTube URL.

Transcribe YouTube Video

Transcribes a YouTube video and saves the result as a markdown file.

How to Run

python ~/.claude/skills/transcribe-youtube/scripts/youtube-transcript.py <URL> [--output-dir <dir>] [--use-youtube-transcript]

• <URL> — YouTube video URL (supports watch, shorts, youtu.be, embed formats)
• --output-dir — where to save the markdown file (default: transcripts/ in cwd)
• --use-youtube-transcript — use YouTube's built-in transcript instead of OpenAI Whisper (faster but lower quality)

Steps

1. Run the script with the user's YouTube URL. If the user specified a custom output directory, pass --output-dir.
2. The script prints the path of the saved markdown file to stdout.
3. Report that path to the user.

Requirements

• OPENAI_API_KEY must be set in the environment (for the default Whisper path)
• Python packages: yt-dlp, openai, pydub, youtube-transcript-api