Rawkode Academy Video Importer

Rawkode Academy Video Importer

Use this skill when importing a YouTube video into rawkode-academy content, especially when the task mentions projects/rawkode.academy/tasks/video-importer, R2 uploads, transcoding, transcription, captions, or episode descriptions.

Critical Rule

Separate evidence for each stage:

• Import/upload complete means the importer state has completed and the original R2 assets return 200.
• Transcoding complete means https://content.rawkode.academy/videos/<cuid>/stream.m3u8 returns 200, or Cloud Run shows the execution completed successfully.
• Transcription complete means https://content.rawkode.academy/videos/<cuid>/captions/en.vtt returns 200.

Do not say transcoding or transcription completed just because the job/workflow was triggered.

Import

1. Start at the repo root and check for unrelated work:

jj status

Preserve unrelated user changes.

2. Before running dependency installs, Bun workspace commands, tests, or generated CI checks, synchronize the workspace from the repository root:

cuenv sync -A

3. Extract the video ID from the YouTube URL. For https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKc8Rna3vDQ, use tKc8Rna3vDQ.

4. Check importer state:

cd projects/rawkode.academy/tasks/video-importer
cuenv exec -e production uv run python youtube_to_r2.py <youtube-id> --show-state

5. Run the importer:

cuenv exec -e production uv run python youtube_to_r2.py <youtube-id>

If the user already downloaded the video, find the file and pass it explicitly:

find /Users/rawkode/Downloads -maxdepth 1 -type f \( -iname '*.mp4' -o -iname '*.mkv' -o -iname '*.mov' -o -iname '*.webm' \) -print
cuenv exec -e production uv run python youtube_to_r2.py <youtube-id> --local-video /absolute/path/to/video.mp4

The importer downloads or prepares the video, extracts MP3 audio, uploads original.mkv, original.mp3, and thumbnail.webp to rawkode-academy-content, triggers Cloud Run transcoding-job, and prints the CUID plus SQL metadata. The downloaded JPEG thumbnail is only a temporary conversion source; thumbnail.webp is the canonical runtime asset. It keeps state in ~/.youtube_to_r2_state/<youtube-id>.json.

If a turn is interrupted, poll the running session if available before starting a new import. Avoid duplicate uploads for the same YouTube ID.

6. Verify import/upload:

jq '{cuid, completed_steps, artifacts, title: .video_info.title, duration: .video_info.duration, upload_date: .video_info.upload_date}' /Users/rawkode/.youtube_to_r2_state/<youtube-id>.json

curl -fsS -I https://content.rawkode.academy/videos/<cuid>/original.mkv
curl -fsS -I https://content.rawkode.academy/videos/<cuid>/original.mp3
curl -fsS -I https://content.rawkode.academy/videos/<cuid>/thumbnail.webp

If an older import has both thumbnail.jpg and thumbnail.webp, remove the JPEG after verifying WebP:

cd projects/rawkode.academy/tasks/video-importer
cuenv exec -e production uv run python migrate_thumbnails_to_webp.py --video-id <cuid> --workers 1
curl -fsS -I https://content.rawkode.academy/videos/<cuid>/thumbnail.webp
curl -fsS -I https://content.rawkode.academy/videos/<cuid>/thumbnail.jpg # should return 404

Content

Create the content file from importer output and nearby entries:

• Path: content/videos/shows/<show>/<year>/<slug>.md
• id: importer CUID
• slug: clean show suffixes like -rawkode-live unless nearby entries keep them
• publishedAt: YouTube upload date as ISO UTC if no better timestamp exists
• duration: importer duration in seconds
• show: matching show ID, commonly rawkode-live or cloud-native-compass
• type, category, technologies, guests, resources: match nearby entries

If a guest is identified by GitHub handle, use the handle for both filename and id, for example content/people/davidmdm.mdx with id: davidmdm.

If the video references a missing technology, add content/technologies/<id>/index.mdx before referencing it. Keep it concise and use primary project sources.

Transcoding

The importer triggers transcoding but does not prove it completed.

Check the public HLS playlist first:

curl -fsS -I https://content.rawkode.academy/videos/<cuid>/stream.m3u8

If it is 404, check Cloud Run executions:

gcloud run jobs executions list \
  --job=transcoding-job \
  --region=europe-west2 \
  --project=rawkode-academy-production \
  --limit=10 \
  --format=json

Find the execution whose container env has VIDEO_ID=<cuid>.

• status.conditions[] with type: Completed, status: True means transcoding completed.
• status.runningCount: 1 and Completed status Unknown means it is still running.
• Completed status False or failed task counts mean it failed; inspect the execution logs before retrying.

Transcription

The YouTube importer does not trigger transcription. The transcription service is projects/rawkode.academy/platform/transcriptions, a Cloudflare Worker with a Cloudflare Workflow named transcribe.

Before scheduling transcription, make sure the live API can resolve the video, because the workflow calls https://api.rawkode.academy:

curl -fsS https://api.rawkode.academy \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data '{"query":"query($id:String!){ videoByID(id:$id){ id title streamUrl thumbnailUrl } }","variables":{"id":"<cuid>"}}'

Trigger transcription:

cd projects/rawkode.academy/platform/transcriptions
cuenv exec -e production bun scripts/schedule_one.ts <cuid> en

Do not pass manual keyterms on the CLI. Transcription keyterms are derived from live content metadata: video title/terms, episode code/terms, show name/terms, guest name/terms, and technology name/terms. If those GraphQL fields or content metadata changed locally, deploy the website/API before deploying or running the transcription Worker, because the workflow queries https://api.rawkode.academy.

Check workflow state:

cuenv exec -e production bunx wrangler workflows instances list transcribe
cuenv exec -e production bunx wrangler workflows instances describe transcribe <workflow-id>

Check artifacts:

curl -fsS -I https://content.rawkode.academy/videos/<cuid>/transcription/deepgram.json
curl -fsS -I https://content.rawkode.academy/videos/<cuid>/captions/en.deepgram.vtt
curl -fsS -I https://content.rawkode.academy/videos/<cuid>/captions/en.vtt

captions/en.vtt is the final caption file used by watch pages.

Known transcription states:

• Completed plus captions/en.vtt returning 200 means transcription is done.
• Waiting can mean the workflow is between retries; run describe for the exact step error.
• Transcription uses Cloudflare Workers AI @cf/deepgram/nova-3, not a direct Deepgram API key. If ASR_PAYMENT_REQUIRED appears, the old direct-Deepgram worker is still running; deploy the current worker and start a fresh workflow.

Episode Description

Only review the transcript after captions/en.vtt exists. Fetch the VTT, skim the major topic flow, then update the video description to be concise and production-facing. Prefer direct summaries over YouTube boilerplate. Keep resources grounded in links mentioned in the episode or obvious primary project links.

Treat generated captions as evidence for the description, not proof that the transcript was manually copyedited. If the VTT still has ASR rough edges, say so plainly unless you actually cleaned and re-uploaded the transcript.

Validation

Run the website content/type check:

cd projects/rawkode.academy/website
bun run astro check

If sandboxed execution fails with listen EPERM for the Cloudflare/Vite inspection port, rerun with approval. Existing Vite dependency-scan noise can appear; use the final exit code and Astro diagnostic summary.

Always report blocked or in-flight work plainly: uploaded, transcode running, transcription waiting, captions missing, etc.