youtube-ingest

name	youtube-ingest
description	Ingest YouTube video transcripts into the transcript database using Gemini API
tags	["youtube","transcript","ingest","gemini","research","external"]
version	1.0.0

/youtube-ingest — YouTube Transcript Ingestion

Extracts transcripts from YouTube videos via the Gemini API (native YouTube processing) and stores them in the transcript SQLite database.

When to use

• User or Captain requests transcript extraction from YouTube videos
• Research needs to ingest external video content for analysis
• Building knowledge base from video sources

Command Grammar

/youtube-ingest <url>                    — Ingest single video
/youtube-ingest <url1> <url2> ...        — Ingest multiple videos
/youtube-ingest --channel <handle> --days <N>  — Ingest recent videos from channel

Execution

Run the handler script:

bash ~/.openclaw/scripts/youtube-ingest.sh "$@"

How it works

1. Takes YouTube URL(s) or channel handle
2. Calls Gemini API (gemini-3-flash-preview) with native YouTube video processing
3. Extracts: transcript (complete), description, upload date
4. Stores in /root/.openclaw/transcripts.db with metadata
5. All entries marked: source=external, trust_level=0.9, trusted_by=Robert

Database Schema

videos(video_id, title, publish_date, url, description, transcript,
       summary, key_insights, source, trust_level, trusted_by, channel, created_at)

Notes

• Gemini API processes YouTube URLs natively — no cookies, no proxy needed
• ~30s per video, 20-40K chars of transcript each
• Rate limit: 2s between API calls to avoid 429s
• YouTube blocks direct access from this VPS (cloud IP) — ONLY the Gemini API method works
• Cost: Gemini Flash pricing per video (~0.5M tokens input per video)

Known Issues

• Gemini sometimes returns wrong upload dates — use channel posting cadence for verification
• Very long videos (>2hr) may timeout at 180s — retry with longer timeout
• See chart: issue-youtube-cloud-ip-block

Intent: Informed [I18]. Purpose: External knowledge ingestion.