kb-yt-channel

name	kb-yt-channel
description	Creates and maintains Knowledge Base topics from YouTube channels by resolving recent or full uploads, scaffolding yt-channels topics, ingesting transcripts through kb ingest youtube, and validating/indexing the result. Use when turning a YouTube channel into a Karpathy KB topic. Do not use for single-video ingestion, general video summaries, or non-YouTube sources.

KB YouTube Channel

Required Inputs

• Channel URL, such as https://www.youtube.com/@aiDotEngineer.
• Topic slug, such as ai-dot-engineer.
• Topic title and domain.
• Video selection: either --limit N for the newest uploads or --all for the full uploads list.
• Transcript policy: --transcribe captions, auto, or stt.
• Indexing policy: lexical QMD indexing by default; pass --embed when vector embeddings are explicitly needed.

Procedure

Step 1: Confirm Prerequisites

1. Run kb version from the vault root.
2. Run yt-dlp --version from the vault root.
3. Run qmd --version when final indexing is required.
4. If --transcribe stt is selected, confirm ffmpeg -version and the configured STT provider credentials.

Step 2: Run Channel Ingest

1. Read references/channel-topic-contract.md when topic metadata or output validation is unclear.
2. Execute python3 scripts/ingest-channel.py from this skill directory, passing:
   • --vault /path/to/vault
   • --channel-url
   • --topic-slug
   • --title
   • --domain <domain>
   • either --limit or --all
   • --transcribe captions|auto|stt
   • optionally --embed for vector embedding after collection sync
3. Treat the script's JSON stdout as the run summary. Treat stderr as progress and diagnostics.

Example:

python3 .agents/skills/kb-yt-channel/scripts/ingest-channel.py --vault . --channel-url https://www.youtube.com/@aiDotEngineer --topic-slug ai-dot-engineer --title "AI Engineer Channel" --domain youtube-channel --limit 10 --transcribe captions

Step 3: Verify The Topic

1. Confirm kb topic info yt-channels/ returns the expected topic path and source count.
2. Confirm /outputs/reports/ contains the channel ingest report for the run.
3. Confirm kb search "" --topic yt-channels/ --collection --lex --format json returns raw transcript or index content after indexing.
4. Leave wiki article compilation to the normal kb compile workflow unless the user explicitly asks for article synthesis.

Error Handling

• If channel resolution fails, read references/troubleshooting.md and retry after updating yt-dlp or YouTube proxy/cookie settings.
• If captions are unavailable and --transcribe captions was selected, report the failed video and rerun only when the user chooses --transcribe auto or stt.
• If STT fails, read references/troubleshooting.md to check ffmpeg, provider credentials, model, chunk size, and network settings.
• If a partial topic exists after failure, rerun the same command. The script reuses the existing topic and skips videos whose source URLs are already present in raw/youtube.