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oztenozten/skills/youtube-transcript/SKILL.md

youtube-transcript

Skill7 starsChanged 9 months agoMITView on GitHub

Extract transcripts from YouTube videos. Zero dependencies - just Node.js. No npm install needed. No dependencies. None required. Uses YouTube's public APIs.

  • Installs packages

59 other projects use a version of this.

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Projects with it also use research-prompt, ship-learn-next and 10 more.

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Files found in the same public projects as a version of this one, more often than they turn up anywhere else. Each project counts once, large collections count for less, and this file's own repository is left out.
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The file

We split this skill into the rules it gives an agent

2 rules. 0 are common, 2 are distinctive, and 0 are very specific to this project.

  • 0

    Common

    Most of the 50 edited versions we read keep these.

  • 2

    Distinctive

    This author's own choices. Worth a look.

  • 0

    Very specific

    Tied to their project's names, files or tools. Probably skip.

  • Common
  • Distinctive
  • Very specific
  1. Distinctive:

    No npm install needed. No dependencies.

    line 42
  2. Distinctive:

    Only works for videos with captions (manual or auto-generated)

    line 67

“Common” is measured: kept by at least 6 in 10 of the 50 edited versions of this file we could read. “Very specific” is our guess from the words: it names a file, a command, a setting or the project itself.

Keep what fits and drop the rest. Your version, ready for your agents.
Files
SKILL.md

youtube-transcript

Extract transcripts from YouTube videos. Zero dependencies - just Node.js.

When to Use

  • "Get the transcript from this YouTube video"
  • "Extract transcript from this video"
  • "What does this YouTube video say?"

Usage

# Extract plain text transcript
node get-transcript.js "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID"

# With timestamps
node get-transcript.js "https://youtu.be/VIDEO_ID" --timestamps

# JSON output (includes offset/duration for each segment)
node get-transcript.js "https://youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID" --json

# Save to file
node get-transcript.js "https://youtu.be/VIDEO_ID" --save transcript.txt

# Specific language
node get-transcript.js "https://youtu.be/VIDEO_ID" --lang es

Supported URL Formats

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID
  • https://youtu.be/VIDEO_ID
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID&t=123
  • https://youtube.com/shorts/VIDEO_ID
  • Just the video ID: dQw4w9WgXcQ

Requirements

  • Node.js 18+

No npm install needed. No dependencies.

How It Works

  1. Tries YouTube's Innertube API first (Android client - faster)
  2. Falls back to web page scraping if needed
  3. Extracts caption track URL from response
  4. Fetches XML captions
  5. Parses segments with timestamps
  6. Returns clean text

API Keys

None required. Uses YouTube's public APIs.

Output Formats

FlagOutput
(default)Plain text, all segments joined
--timestamps[0:00] First line\n[0:05] Second line...
--json[{text, offset, duration, lang}, ...]

Limitations

  • Only works for videos with captions (manual or auto-generated)
  • Private or age-restricted videos will fail
  • YouTube may require CAPTCHA if too many requests from same IP

Download now (ZIP)

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