Supadata

Supadata API

Use the Supadata API via direct curl calls to extract video transcripts and scrape web content for AI applications.

Official docs: https://docs.supadata.ai/

When to Use

Use this skill when you need to:

• Extract transcripts from YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, X (Twitter), Facebook videos
• Scrape web pages to markdown format for AI processing
• Get video/channel metadata from social platforms
• Crawl websites to extract content from multiple pages

Prerequisites

1. Sign up at Supadata Dashboard
2. API key is automatically generated on signup (no credit card required)
3. Store your API key in environment variable

export SUPADATA_API_KEY="your-api-key"

Pricing

• Transcript fetch (existing): 1 credit
• Transcript generation (AI): 2 credits/minute
• Free tier available

Important: When using $VAR in a command that pipes to another command, wrap the command containing $VAR in bash -c '...'. Due to a Claude Code bug, environment variables are silently cleared when pipes are used directly.

bash -c 'curl -s "https://api.example.com" -H "Authorization: Bearer $API_KEY"' | jq .

How to Use

All examples below assume you have SUPADATA_API_KEY set.

The base URL for the API is:

• https://api.supadata.ai/v1

Authentication uses the x-api-key header.

1. Get YouTube Video Transcript

Extract transcript from a YouTube video:

Write to /tmp/supadata_url.txt:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

bash -c 'curl -s "https://api.supadata.ai/v1/transcript" -H "x-api-key: ${SUPADATA_API_KEY}" -G --data-urlencode "url@/tmp/supadata_url.txt" -d "text=true"'

Parameters:

• url: Video URL (required)
• text: Return plain text (true) or timestamped chunks (false, default)
• lang: Preferred language (ISO 639-1 code, e.g., en, zh)
• mode: native (existing only), generate (AI), auto (default)

2. Get Transcript with Timestamps

Get transcript with timing information:

bash -c 'curl -s "https://api.supadata.ai/v1/transcript" -H "x-api-key: ${SUPADATA_API_KEY}" -G --data-urlencode "url@/tmp/supadata_url.txt" -d "text=false"' | jq '.content[:3]'

Response format:

{
  "content": [
  {"text": "Hello", "offset": 0, "duration": 1500, "lang": "en"}
  ],
  "lang": "en",
  "availableLangs": ["en", "es", "zh"]
}

3. Get TikTok/Instagram/X Transcript

Extract transcript from other platforms:

# TikTok
bash -c 'curl -s "https://api.supadata.ai/v1/transcript" -H "x-api-key: ${SUPADATA_API_KEY}" -G --data-urlencode "url@/tmp/supadata_url.txt" -d "text=true"'

# Instagram Reel
bash -c 'curl -s "https://api.supadata.ai/v1/transcript" -H "x-api-key: ${SUPADATA_API_KEY}" -G --data-urlencode "url@/tmp/supadata_url.txt" -d "text=true"'

Supported platforms: YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, X (Twitter), Facebook

4. Native Transcript Only (Save Credits)

Fetch only existing transcripts without AI generation:

bash -c 'curl -s "https://api.supadata.ai/v1/transcript" -H "x-api-key: ${SUPADATA_API_KEY}" -G --data-urlencode "url@/tmp/supadata_url.txt" -d "text=true" -d "mode=native"'

Use mode=native to avoid AI generation costs (1 credit vs 2 credits/min).

5. Get YouTube Channel Metadata

Get channel information:

bash -c 'curl -s "https://api.supadata.ai/v1/youtube/channel" -H "x-api-key: ${SUPADATA_API_KEY}" -G --data-urlencode "id=@mkbhd"' | jq '{name, subscriberCount, videoCount}

Accepts channel URL, channel ID, or handle (e.g., @mkbhd).

6. Get YouTube Video Metadata

Get video information:

bash -c 'curl -s "https://api.supadata.ai/v1/youtube/video" -H "x-api-key: ${SUPADATA_API_KEY}" -G --data-urlencode "url@/tmp/supadata_url.txt"' | jq '{title, viewCount, likeCount, duration}

7. Get Social Media Metadata

Get metadata from any supported platform:

bash -c 'curl -s "https://api.supadata.ai/v1/metadata" -H "x-api-key: ${SUPADATA_API_KEY}" -G --data-urlencode "url@/tmp/supadata_url.txt"'

Works with YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, X, Facebook posts.

8. Scrape Web Page to Markdown

Extract web page content:

bash -c 'curl -s "https://api.supadata.ai/v1/web/scrape" -H "x-api-key: ${SUPADATA_API_KEY}" -G --data-urlencode "url@/tmp/supadata_url.txt"'

Returns page content in Markdown format, ideal for AI processing.

9. Map Website Links

Get all links from a website:

bash -c 'curl -s "https://api.supadata.ai/v1/web/map" -H "x-api-key: ${SUPADATA_API_KEY}" -G --data-urlencode "url@/tmp/supadata_url.txt"' | jq '.urls[:10]'

10. Crawl Website (Async)

Start a crawl job for multiple pages.

Write to /tmp/supadata_request.json:

{
  "url": "https://example.com",
  "maxPages": 10
}

Then run:

# Start crawl
JOB_ID="$(bash -c 'curl -s "https://api.supadata.ai/v1/web/crawl" -X POST -H "x-api-key: ${SUPADATA_API_KEY}" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d @/tmp/supadata_request.json' | jq -r '.jobId')"

echo "Job ID: ${JOB_ID}"

# Check status
bash -c 'curl -s "https://api.supadata.ai/v1/web/crawl/<your-job-id>" -H "x-api-key: ${SUPADATA_API_KEY}"' | jq '{status, pagesCompleted}'

Status values: queued, active, completed, failed

11. Translate Transcript

Translate a YouTube transcript to another language:

bash -c 'curl -s "https://api.supadata.ai/v1/youtube/transcript/translate" -H "x-api-key: ${SUPADATA_API_KEY}" -G --data-urlencode "url@/tmp/supadata_url.txt" -d "lang=zh" -d "text=true"'

Response Handling

Synchronous (HTTP 200): Direct result returned.

Asynchronous (HTTP 202): Returns jobId for polling:

{"jobId": "abc123"}

Poll the job endpoint until status is completed.

Guidelines

1. Use mode=native to save credits: Only fetches existing transcripts
2. URL encode parameters: Use --data-urlencode for URLs
3. Check available languages: Response includes availableLangs array
4. Handle async responses: Some requests return job IDs for polling
5. Max file size: 1GB for direct file URLs
6. Supported formats: MP4, WEBM, MP3, FLAC, MPEG, M4A, OGG, WAV