Transcript

Fetch YouTube video transcripts via Loore — tool yt_transcript (docs: https://docs.loore.ai). It reads the video's public captions, any length, no AI transcription; works for videos and Shorts.

YouTube data comes only from Loore or the official YouTube Data API v3. The official API cannot download captions of other people's videos (captions.download works only for videos you can edit), so Loore is the only path here. Never fetch transcripts with yt-dlp, innertube or transcript sites from your own machine.

Setup

If $LOORE_API_KEY is not set, ask the user to create a key: https://app.loore.ai → Настройки → API и MCP (the plaintext is shown once). Then:

export LOORE_API_KEY="..."   # never in chat, logs or git

Spend approval. A transcript costs 2 credits, only when one is returned (no captions = free; continuing a long transcript is free). The title header adds one yt_video call (1.5 credits). State the cap to the user once, and after their «yes» create a 24-hour budget:

python3 ./scripts/_loore.py approve --flow transcript --cap 20
export LOORE_SPEND_AUTHORIZATION_ID=<printed id>

The script sends spend_authorization_id with every paid call. Without it Loore answers 428 needs_user_confirmation.

MCP instead of the script. Tool yt_transcript on https://mcp.loore.ai/mcp (header Authorization: Bearer <key>) takes the same arguments.

Get a transcript

python3 ./scripts/yt_transcript.py "VIDEO_URL" --timestamps

Default: always use --timestamps unless the user asks otherwise.

Long transcripts come in windows (up to 40000 characters or 400 segments each, truncated / nextOffset); the script reads all of them.

Output (text, --timestamps):

# Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up — Rick Astley

[00:00:18] We're no strangers to love
[00:00:21] You know the rules and so do I

Output (--json --timestamps):

{
  "video_id": "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "language": "en",
  "transcript": [
    { "text": "We're no strangers to love", "start": 18.0, "duration": 3.5 },
    { "text": "You know the rules and so do I", "start": 21.5, "duration": 2.8 }
  ],
  "metadata": {
    "title": "Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up",
    "author_name": "Rick Astley"
  }
}

Without --timestamps, transcript is one string.

Errors

Tips

• For long videos, summarize key points first, offer full transcript on request.
• Use --json --timestamps when you need precise timestamps for quoting specific moments.
• Drop --timestamps for clean text suitable for translation or analysis.
• Pick the track: yt_video lists captionLanguages; pass one as --lang.