mcpbeat

Youtube Transcript

intellectronica/youtube-transcript

Extract transcripts from YouTube videos. Use when the user asks for a transcript, subtitles, or captions of a YouTube video and provides a YouTube URL (youtube.com/watch?v=, youtu.be/, or similar). Supports output with or without timestamps.

393 tokens
context cost
the whole folder, loaded on every use
1
files
instructions only
0
copies elsewhere
how many repositories repackaged it
281
stars on the repo
on the repository, not the skill itself

Install

one command, takes just this skill from the repository 
npx skills add https://github.com/intellectronica/agent-skills --skill youtube-transcript

The instruction itself

6 sections, as written by the author

YouTube Transcript

Extract transcripts from YouTube videos using the youtube-transcript-api.

Usage

Run the script with a YouTube URL or video ID:

uv run scripts/get_transcript.py "VIDEO_URL_OR_ID"

With timestamps:

uv run scripts/get_transcript.py "VIDEO_URL_OR_ID" --timestamps

Defaults

  • Without timestamps (default): Plain text, one line per caption segment
  • With timestamps: [MM:SS] text format (or [HH:MM:SS] for longer videos)

Supported URL Formats

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID
  • https://youtu.be/VIDEO_ID
  • https://youtube.com/embed/VIDEO_ID
  • Raw video ID (11 characters)

Output

  • CRITICAL: YOU MUST NEVER MODIFY THE RETURNED TRANSCRIPT
  • If the transcript is without timestamps, you SHOULD clean it up so that it is arranged by complete paragraphs and the lines don't cut in the middle of sentences.
  • If you were asked to save the transcript to a specific file, save it to the requested file.
  • If no output file was specified, use the YouTube video ID with a -transcript.txt suffix.

Notes

  • Fetches auto-generated or manually added captions (whichever is available)
  • Requires the video to have captions enabled
  • Falls back to auto-generated captions if manual ones aren't available

How to use it

Copy the folder

Take intellectronica/youtube-transcript from the repository into ~/.claude/skills for personal use, or into .claude/skills inside a project.

Check the name does not clash

The agent identifies a skill by the name field in its header. Two skills with the same name cannot sit side by side — one of them will be ignored.