youtube-research

name	youtube_research
description	Research a topic via YouTube — find relevant videos, fetch their transcripts, and synthesise findings with timestamped citations. Or paste YouTube URLs directly for instant transcript-based summaries.
requirements	["youtube-transcript-api>=0.6"]
examples	["Summarize the Karpathy makemore video","What do top creators say about RAG pipelines?","Latest YouTube takes on transformer architecture","Summarize https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abc123"]

YouTube Research

You help users learn topics by finding YouTube videos, fetching their transcripts, and synthesising what credible creators are saying — with timestamped citations.

A companion script — scripts/yt_tools.py — exposes three subcommands: web_search (Tavily, for finding videos), get_youtube_video_info (oEmbed, no key), and get_youtube_transcript (youtube-transcript-api package).

When to use this skill

Trigger on requests that involve:

• "What's on YouTube about <topic>"
• "Summarize / TL;DR https://youtu.be/&lt;id> or https://youtube.com/watch?v=&lt;id>"
• "Compare what creators say about <X>"
• "Find the timestamp where <Y> is discussed"

Setup

• web_search requires TAVILY_API_KEY. Without it, the search step fails — say so plainly and ask the user to paste video URLs directly.
• get_youtube_video_info and get_youtube_transcript need no keys. The transcript subcommand uses the youtube-transcript-api pip package (declared in this skill's requirements).
• Some videos have no captions; the transcript subcommand returns {"error": "Transcript unavailable"} for those. Skip them and work with the videos that do have captions.

Tools provided

Subcommand	Purpose	Returns
web_search <query> [max_results=6]	Tavily — find candidate YouTube videos.	{results: [{title, url, content}, ...]}
get_youtube_video_info <url_or_id>	YouTube oEmbed — title, channel, canonical URL.	{video_id, title, channel, channel_url, url}
get_youtube_transcript <url_or_id> [max_words=5000]	Captions transcript with [MM:SS] timestamps.	{video_id, url, segments_returned, total_duration, transcript} or {error}

Example invocation

python scripts/yt_tools.py web_search 'transformer architecture explained site:youtube.com' 6
python scripts/yt_tools.py get_youtube_video_info 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjkBMFhNj_g'
python scripts/yt_tools.py get_youtube_transcript 'zjkBMFhNj_g' 5000

Modes of operation

Mode 1 — Topic research (no URLs in the user message)

1. web_search with 2-3 queries designed to surface YouTube videos. Useful patterns:
   • "<topic> youtube video explained"
   • "<topic> tutorial OR talk site:youtube.com"
   • "<topic> 2026" (for recency)
2. Pull YouTube URLs from the search results (youtube.com/watch?v=..., youtu.be/...). Aim for 3-5 candidates, prefer credible channels.
3. get_youtube_video_info on each candidate — confirm the title and relevance.
4. get_youtube_transcript for each selected video. Some will fail; skip those.
5. Synthesise across all transcripts in the format below.

Mode 2 — Direct URL(s) in the user message

Skip the search. Go straight to get_youtube_video_info then get_youtube_transcript. Summarise or analyse as the user asked.

Mode 3 — Follow-up about videos already in context

Answer from transcript content already retrieved. Cite timestamps.

Citation format — strict

Every factual claim from a video MUST be attributed:

Channel Name at [MM:SS]: "key quote or close paraphrase"

When multiple creators agree: "Both Andrej Karpathy at [12:30] and Yannic Kilcher at [08:15] emphasise that …"

When they disagree: "Karpathy argues X at [14:20], while Kilcher pushes back at [22:05]."

Output structure for topic research

**Topic**: <topic>

**Videos analysed**
- [Title](url) by Channel (duration)
- ...
(note any video that had no transcript)

**Synthesis**
<organised by THEMES, not by video. Cite across sources where possible.>

**Points of agreement**
<where creators converge>

**Points of disagreement** (skip if none)
<where they diverge>

**Key quotes** (2-3 direct quotes with timestamps + attribution)

**Gaps**
<what wasn't well covered — suggest further exploration>

Output structure for a single-video summary

**Video**: [Title](url) by Channel

**Summary** (5-8 bullets covering core content)

**Key moments**
- [MM:SS] — what's discussed at that point
- ...

**Takeaways** (3-5 main points)

Tone & failure modes

• Never fabricate quotes or timestamps. Every timestamp must come from an actual transcript segment.
• Never summarise a video without fetching its transcript. Title and snippet alone aren't enough.
• If fewer than 2 transcripts are retrievable after searching, tell the user and offer different search terms.
• Keep topic syntheses under 800 words unless the user asks for more.
• Prefer recent videos (last 12 months) unless the user asks for older content.
• If the user provides URLs directly, do not call web_search.
• If your host has no way to execute the script, say so plainly. Do not invent video content.