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youtube-transcript skill

/skills/xthezealot/youtube-transcript

This skill fetches YouTube transcripts and optionally summarizes content to provide concise insights from videos.

npx playbooks add skill openclaw/skills --skill youtube-transcript

Review the files below or copy the command above to add this skill to your agents.

Files (4)
SKILL.md
1.3 KB
---
name: youtube-transcript
description: Fetch and summarize YouTube video transcripts. Use when asked to summarize, transcribe, or extract content from YouTube videos. Handles transcript fetching via residential IP proxy to bypass YouTube's cloud IP blocks.
---

# YouTube Transcript

Fetch transcripts from YouTube videos and optionally summarize them.

## Quick Start

```bash
python3 scripts/fetch_transcript.py <video_id_or_url> [languages]
```

**Examples:**
```bash
python3 scripts/fetch_transcript.py dQw4w9WgXcQ
python3 scripts/fetch_transcript.py "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"
python3 scripts/fetch_transcript.py dQw4w9WgXcQ "fr,en,de"
```

**Output:** JSON with `video_id`, `title`, `author`, `full_text`, and timestamped `transcript` array.

## Workflow

1. Run `fetch_transcript.py` with video ID or URL
2. Script checks VPN, brings it up if needed
3. Returns JSON with full transcript text
4. Summarize the `full_text` field as needed

## Language Codes

Default priority: `en, fr, de, es, it, pt, nl`

Override with second argument: `python3 scripts/fetch_transcript.py VIDEO_ID "ja,ko,zh"`

## Setup & Configuration

See [references/SETUP.md](references/SETUP.md) for:
- Python dependencies installation
- WireGuard VPN configuration (required for cloud VPS)
- Troubleshooting common errors
- Alternative proxy options

Overview

This skill fetches transcripts from YouTube videos and can produce concise summaries when requested. It uses a residential IP proxy workflow to avoid cloud IP blocks and returns structured JSON with metadata, full text, and timestamped segments. Use it to transcribe, extract quotes, or prepare summaries for downstream tasks.

How this skill works

Provide a video URL or ID and optional language priorities; the script brings up a residential VPN/proxy if required to bypass YouTube cloud IP restrictions. It retrieves available captions, assembles a full_text field and a timestamped transcript array, and returns JSON containing video_id, title, author, full_text, and transcript. Optionally, the full_text can be summarized to produce short abstracts or key points.

When to use it

  • You need a full transcript of a YouTube video for research, notes, or indexing.
  • You want a quick summary or highlights from a long video for faster review.
  • You must extract multilingual captions or prefer specific language priority order.
  • You need timestamped segments for citation, clipping, or subtitle editing.
  • You want a reproducible JSON output for pipelines or backups.

Best practices

  • Supply the video ID or full URL to avoid parsing errors.
  • Specify preferred language codes if captions exist in multiple languages (e.g., "en,fr,de").
  • Run from an environment configured with the required VPN/proxy to prevent fetch failures on cloud hosts.
  • Validate resulting JSON fields (video_id, title, author, full_text, transcript) before ingestion into other tools.
  • For long videos, summarize the full_text separately to reduce token usage in downstream NLP tasks.

Example use cases

  • Generate searchable archives of lecture transcripts for an education repository.
  • Create short summaries or key-point lists for long interview or podcast episodes.
  • Extract timestamps and quotes for clipping sections to create social clips or highlights.
  • Support multilingual caption retrieval for translation workflows and accessibility.
  • Backup transcript data and metadata in JSON for long-term archival.

FAQ

What input formats are accepted?

Provide a YouTube video ID or a full video URL as the primary input; an optional second argument accepts comma-separated language codes.

Why does the script require a VPN or proxy?

It uses a residential IP proxy or WireGuard configuration to avoid YouTube cloud IP rate limits and blocks that can occur on public VPS providers.