youtube-transcript

name	youtube-transcript
description	Fetch the transcript of any YouTube video as plain text. Use when user shares a YouTube URL and wants it summarised, analysed, quoted from, or processed in any way. Triggers on: "transcribe this", "get the transcript", "summarise this video", "what does this video say", any YouTube URL shared without further context.

youtube-transcript

Fetch YouTube transcripts as plain text via youtube-transcript-api (no install needed — uv handles it).

Usage

uv run --with youtube-transcript-api python3 -c "
from youtube_transcript_api import YouTubeTranscriptApi
api = YouTubeTranscriptApi()
transcript = api.fetch('VIDEO_ID')
text = ' '.join([t.text for t in transcript])
print(text)
"

Extract video ID from URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID or https://youtu.be/VIDEO_ID.

With timestamps

uv run --with youtube-transcript-api python3 -c "
from youtube_transcript_api import YouTubeTranscriptApi
api = YouTubeTranscriptApi()
transcript = api.fetch('VIDEO_ID')
for t in transcript:
    print(f'[{int(t.start//60)}:{int(t.start%60):02d}] {t.text}')
"

Notes

• Works on any video with auto-generated or manual captions
• Raises TranscriptsDisabled if the video has no captions
• Raises IpBlocked or PoTokenRequired if YouTube rate-limits — rare
• No API key needed