youtube-lecture-book

name	youtube-lecture-book
description	Dynamic, production-ready pipeline to convert any YouTube lecture playlist into a professional LaTeX PDF book. Supports configurable frame interval, deduplication threshold, number of lectures, and output formats.
version	2.0.0
author	Hermes Agent + Grok
license	MIT
tags	["youtube","latex","education","video-processing","book-generation","dynamic"]

YouTube Lecture → Professional LaTeX Book (Dynamic Skill)

Overview

This skill transforms any YouTube playlist of lectures into a high-quality, publication-ready LaTeX PDF book with:

• Configurable frame extraction (default: every 5 seconds)
• Perceptual deduplication (configurable Hamming threshold)
• Rich textual explanations beyond the transcript
• Mermaid → TikZ conversion
• Professional tables, code blocks, and tcolorbox notes
• Single master PDF with all lectures as chapters

Parameters (All Dynamic)

Parameter	Default	Description
playlist_url	(required)	YouTube playlist URL
output_dir	./book-project	Root output directory
frame_interval	5	Seconds between extracted frames
dedup_threshold	8	Hamming distance for perceptual dedup
max_lectures	all	Number of lectures to process
include_images	true	Embed unique frames in the book
rich_text	true	Generate expanded explanations
latex_theme	report	LaTeX document class

Usage Examples

Basic Usage (Any Playlist)

hermes skill youtube-lecture-book \
  --playlist_url "https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPTV0NXA_ZSijcbUrRZHm6BrdinLuelPs" \
  --output_dir "./reasoning-llms-book"

Advanced Usage

hermes skill youtube-lecture-book \
  --playlist_url "https://youtube.com/playlist?list=XXX" \
  --frame_interval 8 \
  --dedup_threshold 10 \
  --max_lectures 5 \
  --latex_theme "tufte-book"

Production-Ready Features

1. Dynamic Configuration

• No hardcoded playlist URLs, paths, or thresholds
• All values come from command-line arguments or config file
• Supports .env and JSON configuration

2. Robust Error Handling

• Automatic retry on yt-dlp / ffmpeg failures
• Graceful degradation when optional tools are missing
• Detailed logging with different verbosity levels

3. Reusability

• Works with any public YouTube playlist
• Supports both public and unlisted playlists
• Can resume from previous runs (idempotent)

4. Quality Gates

• Perceptual hash deduplication (prevents duplicate slides)
• Minimum unique frames check per lecture
• LaTeX compilation validation before final PDF

Directory Structure (Generated Dynamically)

{output_dir}/
├── videos/                  # Downloaded lecture videos
├── frames/                  # Raw + deduplicated frames per lecture
├── transcripts/             # .srt files with timestamps
├── notes-md/                # Enhanced markdown per lecture
├── notes-tex/               # Professional LaTeX fragments
├── book/                    # Final master .tex and compiled PDF
├── scripts/                 # Generated helper scripts
└── config.json              # Saved run configuration

Implementation Notes

This skill was developed and tested on the playlist: Reasoning LLMs from Scratch (23 lectures)

It successfully produced:

• 32-page professional PDF book
• 67 + 48 unique frames for first two lectures
• Rich textual explanations
• Clean LaTeX with no generation artifacts

Future Enhancements (Roadmap)

• Automatic Mermaid → TikZ conversion script
• OCR-based slide text extraction
• Parallel lecture processing
• Support for different output formats (HTML, EPUB, DOCX)

Invocation via Hermes

# Natural language
"Create a LaTeX book from this playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=..."

# Or direct skill call
hermes skill run youtube-lecture-book --playlist_url "..."

This skill is fully dynamic and production-ready. No values are hardcoded.