# Youtube Transcript

> Fetch a YouTube video's title, metadata, and full transcript as text/JSON so it can be summarized, quoted, or turned into a lesson. Use whenever the user gives a YouTube URL or asks what a video says.

- Skill: `nightdreams-bat/youtube-transcript` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 2 files)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add nightdreams-bat/youtube-transcript`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/nightdreams-bat/youtube-transcript/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Coding & Dev Tools
- Author: Nightdreams-bat (https://skillmd.com/u/nightdreams-bat)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/nightdreams-bat/youtube-transcript

---


# YouTube transcript

Ported in spirit from amosblomqvist/pi-config's `youtube-transcript`.

Needs `yt-dlp` on PATH (already installed for this user at
`~/AppData/Local/Programs/Python/Python312/Scripts/yt-dlp`).

## Tool

```
python "~/.claude/skills/youtube-transcript/scripts/fetch.py" <url-or-id> [--json] [--lang en]
```

- Prints `TITLE`, `CHANNEL`, `DURATION`, `URL`, then the transcript as plain
  paragraphs (timestamps stripped).
- `--json` emits `{title, channel, duration, url, segments:[{start,text}]}`.
- `--lang` picks the caption language; falls back to auto-generated captions.

## How to use

1. Run the script with the URL.
2. If it errors with "no captions", tell the user the video has no transcript
   available — do not try to transcribe audio yourself.
3. Then do whatever the user asked: summarize, extract steps, or (if they want
   to learn the content) hand off to the `teach` skill using the transcript as
   the source.