Youtube Skills by artemchuikin

YouTube Skills for AI Agents 🎬

Drop-in skills that let a coding or chat agent pull YouTube transcripts, run searches, walk channels and export whole playlists.

An Agent Skill is a folder of instructions an agent loads when the task matches. The 12 skills in this repo cover YouTube end to end. Each one names its endpoint, shows the exact request, lists every parameter with defaults and limits, and maps every error code to a recovery, so the agent makes the right call on the first try instead of guessing. No yt-dlp, no headless browser, no Google Cloud project. One HTTPS request per answer.

Works with Claude Code, Cursor, Antigravity, Cline, Codex, OpenClaw, Hermes Agent, and anything else that reads the Agent Skills format.

Made by TranscriptOut · API docs · MCP server

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⚡ Quick start

npx skills add artemchuikin/youtube-skills --skill youtube-full

Then ask the agent something it previously had to refuse.

What does this talk actually claim? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

The first run also takes care of the API key, without leaving the chat. The agent asks for your email, a 6-digit code arrives in your inbox, you read it back, and a fresh sk_ key lands in your shell or agent config. The account behind it is free, starts with 100 credits and never asks for a card.

<details> <summary><strong>Other install paths</strong></summary>

Hermes Agent

hermes skills install skills-sh/artemchuikin/youtube-skills/skills/youtube-full

All 12 skills at once

npx skills add artemchuikin/youtube-skills

Manual (git clone)

git clone https://github.com/artemchuikin/youtube-skills.git
cp -r youtube-skills/skills/youtube-full ~/.claude/skills/

OpenClaw (ClawdBot/Moltbot). Copy a folder from clawhub/ into your skills directory. The clawhub/ tree carries the same 12 skills with bash-style examples.

No terminal at all. Paste this into the agent and let it do the work.

Install the youtube skills from this GitHub repo: https://github.com/artemchuikin/youtube-skills
I want to get YouTube transcripts, search YouTube, and browse channel videos from my agent.
Set everything up for me.

Installing skills and creating the API key are both things these skills teach the agent to do.

</details>

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💬 What you can ask

Every row is something you can say to the agent word for word. The skill turns it into the right API call.

Ask for	For example
A transcript	"What does this video actually say? [URL]"
A summary or quote	"Pull the three strongest quotes from this talk"
Subtitles as files	"Export this video's subtitles as SRT"
A YouTube search	"Find recent talks about Rust async and pick the best three"
A channel's news	"Anything new on @kurzgesagt this week?"
A channel's catalogue	"List everything @3blue1brown has ever uploaded"
Search inside a channel	"Find every Fireship video that mentions Postgres"
A whole playlist	"Turn this lecture course into study notes"
A bulk export	"Queue transcripts for all 800 videos on this channel"
RAG-ready chunks	"Fetch this playlist's transcripts in ~1000-character segments for my index"

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🧰 Which skill to install

youtube-full is the right answer for most people. One skill, the whole surface. The narrower ones exist because a skill is context the agent has to carry, and a workflow that only ever needs transcripts should not pay for playlist documentation.

Skill	What it does	Install
youtube-full	Everything. Transcripts, search, channels, playlists, bulk jobs	--skill youtube-full
transcript	Video transcripts with timestamps	--skill transcript
youtube-search	Search YouTube for videos and channels	--skill youtube-search
youtube-channels	Uploads, latest videos, search within a channel	--skill youtube-channels
youtube-playlist	Every video of a playlist	--skill youtube-playlist

# one skill
npx skills add artemchuikin/youtube-skills --skill transcript

# several at once
npx skills add artemchuikin/youtube-skills --skill transcript --skill youtube-search

<details> <summary><strong>All 12 skills</strong></summary>

Beyond the core five, the rest are vocabulary variants of the same capabilities. People say "captions", "subtitles", "video to text" or "youtube api" for overlapping things, and an agent picks a skill by matching your words against skill descriptions, so each phrasing has a skill that answers to it.

Skill	Description
youtube-full	Complete toolkit. Transcripts + search + channels + playlists + bulk jobs
transcript	Extract the transcript of any YouTube video, with timestamps
captions	Closed captions / CC, including SRT and VTT files
subtitles	Subtitles from YouTube videos, including SRT and VTT files
youtube-search	Search YouTube for videos and channels
youtube-channels	Channel uploads, latest videos, in-channel search
youtube-playlist	All videos of a YouTube playlist
youtube-data	Video and channel data without Google's API quotas
youtube-api	YouTube API access for agents, no Google Cloud project
transcriptout	The full API surface in one skill
video-transcript	Convert YouTube videos to text
yt	Quick lookups. Transcript, search, channel latest

</details>

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💳 What calls cost

The unit is a credit, and one credit is one answered request.

Request	Cost
transcript of one video (any of 5 formats)	1
video metadata + available caption languages	1
YouTube search	1 per page
channel latest (~15 newest videos)	1
channel videos	1 per page (100 videos, or 500 IDs)
search within a channel	1 per page
playlist videos	1 per page (100 videos, or 500 IDs)
search within a playlist	1
bulk job submit	1 per video
bulk job progress, results, cancel	free

A call that dies before reaching YouTube (bad parameter, rate limit, service busy) refunds itself automatically. A confirmed "this video has no captions" costs the credit, because the lookup really happened. The rate limit is 200 requests per minute per key on every plan.

Plan	Price	Credits
Free	$0	100 on signup, one-time
Starter	$4.49/month	1,000/month
Starter Annual	$45.29/year (~$3.77/mo)	1,000/month
Scale	slider up to $198.99/mo	up to 100,000/month

Subscription volume is a slider from 1,000 to 100,000 credits per month in steps of 1,000, and the per-1,000 rate falls as the volume grows. Full pricing →

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📦 Built for bulk work

Bulk export is one job, not a loop. The agent collects video IDs cheaply (ids_only=true returns up to 500 per page), submits them all in a single POST /v1/transcripts (up to 4,000 videos), and reads results page by page while the job is still running. Duplicates are dropped before billing, an Idempotency-Key makes retries free, the job paces itself inside the rate limit instead of tripping 429s, and any video the service fails to deliver is refunded on its own. A full channel archive that used to be an evening of scripting is three prompts.

🧠 Chunks sized for retrieval

Transcripts arrive pre-chunked if you ask. The segment parameter (20 to 5,000 characters) controls how the text is cut, and 500 to 1,500 gives retrieval-sized pieces with real context. Cut points come from per-word timestamps in YouTube's raw srv3 data, so each chunk's start is the moment the words are actually spoken rather than an interpolation. segment=1000&format=json goes straight into an embedding pipeline with no re-chunking step.

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🔑 Setting up the key by hand

The in-chat flow above is optional. The manual way takes two minutes.

1. Sign in at transcriptout.com with Google or a magic link. The first sign-in is the signup and grants the free credits.
2. Create an API key in the dashboard. It starts with sk_ and is shown once.
3. Store it where the agent can read it, without pasting it into the chat. If your runtime asks for TRANSCRIPTOUT_API_KEY itself (Hermes, OpenClaw), enter it there. Otherwise run this in your own terminal: it reads the key without echoing it into a file only you can read.

mkdir -p ~/.config/transcriptout && chmod 700 ~/.config/transcriptout && (umask 077; printf 'TranscriptOut key: '; stty -echo; IFS= read -r k; stty echo; echo; printf '%s' "$k" > ~/.config/transcriptout/key)

4. Load it in every shell. Add this line to your shell profile. It holds a path, not the key:

export TRANSCRIPTOUT_API_KEY="$(cat ~/.config/transcriptout/key 2>/dev/null)"

<details> <summary><strong>Where does the key get saved?</strong></summary>

Location	File
OpenClaw/Moltbot	the runtime's own config, via its prompt for TRANSCRIPTOUT_API_KEY
Hermes Agent	Hermes secret store (TRANSCRIPTOUT_API_KEY declared via required_environment_variables in skill frontmatter)
Everything else	~/.config/transcriptout/key (folder mode 700, file mode 600), loaded by one line in the shell profile

The key itself never goes into a shell profile, a project directory or the chat, and the skills never print it. If you pasted it into a chat anyway, create a fresh key in the dashboard and delete the old one.

</details> </details>

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❓ FAQ

Can I bulk download YouTube transcripts?

Yes, and there is a purpose-built endpoint for it. Install youtube-full and ask for transcripts of a playlist or channel. The agent gathers the IDs and submits one batch job for up to 4,000 videos, then reads results as they land. Same price per video as single calls.

Do I need a Google YouTube Data API key?

No. These skills replace the Data API for transcripts, search, and channel and playlist listings, without a Google Cloud project, quota units or OAuth screens. Google's API also does not return transcripts, which tends to be the whole point.

Do I need an API key at all?

Yes, but getting one is part of the first run. The agent registers your email, you read a 6-digit code off your inbox, and the key is stored for you. 100 free credits, no card.

Which skill should I install?

youtube-full, unless you know you want less. The narrow ones are listed under Which skill to install.

What API is underneath?

TranscriptOut, a hosted YouTube data API. The full reference lives at transcriptout.com/docs, and the same backend is available as a remote MCP server if your client speaks MCP natively. For code outside an agent there are client libraries, pip install transcriptout and npm i transcriptout, drop-in replacements for youtube-transcript-api and youtube-transcript.

Live streams?

Transcripts appear after a stream ends and captions are processed, not while it runs.

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🧯 Troubleshooting

Every error response carries a machine-readable code and a request_id, and agents tend to relay them word for word, so this table is keyed by what you will actually see.

Symptom	Likely cause	Fix
401 Unauthorized	Key missing, mistyped, or not loaded into the environment	Confirm TRANSCRIPTOUT_API_KEY is set in the shell the agent runs in and starts with sk_
402 Payment Required	The account is out of credits	Check the balance at transcriptout.com/billing
404 Not Found	No captions on the requested language or track, or a wrong ID	A definitive answer, retrying won't change it. Try another lang, or kind=auto
410 Gone	The video was removed	Nothing to fetch
451	Age-restricted or members-only video	Nothing to fetch without an account, which the API deliberately does not use
422 / 400	A malformed parameter	Channels accept @handle, a name, a URL or a UC ID. Playlists take a PL... ID or URL. The credit refunds itself
429 Too Many Requests	Rate limit reached (200 req/min per key)	Wait out the Retry-After header. The credit refunds itself
503	Temporary capacity pressure on cold fetches	Retry after Retry-After. The credit refunds itself

And three situations that are not errors at all.

• The key is saved but the agent cannot see it. Shell profiles only load into new shells, and the session that wrote the key does not reread its own profile. Restart the agent, or check that the file written matches the shell the agent actually runs (see the table above).
• The transcript came back in an unexpected language. Many videos only carry captions in their original language. Ask for lang=<code> explicitly, or let the agent translate. The metadata endpoint lists which languages a video actually has.
• A fresh upload has no transcript yet. Captions take YouTube some time to process after publishing. Come back in a while.

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🗂️ Repository layout

skills/     the 12 skills with HTTP-style examples (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Hermes, ...)
clawhub/    the same 12 with bash examples, for OpenClaw
scripts/    generate.py, the single source every skill file is emitted from
assets/     icons

The skill files are generated. Edit scripts/generate.py and re-run it rather than touching skills/ or clawhub/ by hand. The endpoints and error tables stay consistent across all 12 because they come from one section library.

🤝 Contributing

PRs welcome. See CONTRIBUTING.md.

📄 License

MIT. These skills call the TranscriptOut API, an independent product that is not affiliated with or endorsed by YouTube or Google.