Extract YouTube video transcripts from existing captions (manual or auto-generated) using yt-dlp, with optional timestamps and local SQLite caching. Use when the user asks for a YouTube transcript, captions, subtitles, or wants to turn a YouTube link into text for summarization/search.
This skill extracts transcripts from existing YouTube captions.
Primary behavior
--text)Reliability behavior
yt-dlp reports no captions for a video, the script tries a fallback:
get_transcript) when accessibleThis published version intentionally does not call third-party transcript providers.
Privacy note: This published version only contacts YouTube directly (via and the transcript panel fallback). It does send video IDs/URLs to third-party transcript providers.
yt-dlpCookies: Cookies are treated as secrets.
--cookies / YT_TRANSCRIPT_COOKIES, but does not auto-load cookies from inside the skill directory.~/.config/yt-transcript/.Path safety: This skill restricts --cookies and --cache paths to approved directories.
~/.config/yt-transcript/{baseDir}/cache/ and ~/.config/yt-transcript/Script path:
{baseDir}/scripts/yt_transcript.pyTypical usage:
python3 {baseDir}/scripts/yt_transcript.py <youtube_url_or_id>python3 {baseDir}/scripts/yt_transcript.py <url> --lang enpython3 {baseDir}/scripts/yt_transcript.py <url> --textpython3 {baseDir}/scripts/yt_transcript.py <url> --no-tsCookies (optional, but often required on VPS IPs):
python3 {baseDir}/scripts/yt_transcript.py <url> --cookies /path/to/youtube-cookies.txtYT_TRANSCRIPT_COOKIES=/path/to/youtube-cookies.txtPublishing safety note: Cookies are optional, so YT_TRANSCRIPT_COOKIES is intentionally not required by skill metadata. Only set it if you need authenticated access.
Best practice: store cookies outside the skill folder (so you never accidentally publish them), e.g. ~/.config/yt-transcript/youtube-cookies.txt, and point to it via --cookies or YT_TRANSCRIPT_COOKIES.
A JSON object:
video_id: 11-char idlang: chosen languagesource: manual | auto | panelsegments: list of { start, duration, text } (or text-only when --no-ts)--text)A newline-separated transcript.
[12.34s].--no-ts to output only the text lines.Default cache DB:
{baseDir}/cache/transcripts.sqliteCache key includes:
video_id, lang, source, include_timestamp, formatRecommended local path (ignored by git/publish):
{baseDir}/cache/youtube-cookies.txt (chmod 600)yt-dlp is missing, instruct the user to install it (recommended):
pipx install yt-dlpyt-dlp is on PATH