YouTube Skill

Swiss army knife for YouTube using yt-dlp. Light scripts for the most common actions.

Prerequisites

• Python 3.10+

• yt-dlp (pip install yt-dlp or brew install yt-dlp )

• ffmpeg (for audio extraction: brew install ffmpeg )

Scripts

All scripts are in skills/youtube/scripts/ . Output goes to skills/youtube/output/ .

transcript.py — Extract Subtitles

python transcript.py "URL" # Default: English python transcript.py "URL" --lang es # Spanish python transcript.py "URL" --timestamps # Keep timestamps

download.py — Download Video/Audio

Video

python download.py "URL" # Best quality python download.py "URL" --quality 720 # 720p max

Audio only

python download.py "URL" --audio # Best audio → mp3 python download.py "URL" --audio --format m4a # Keep as m4a

info.py — Get Metadata

python info.py "URL" # Title, duration, channel python info.py "URL" --json # Full JSON dump python info.py "URL" --formats # Available formats

playlist.py — Playlist Operations

python playlist.py "URL" # List all videos python playlist.py "URL" --download # Download all python playlist.py "URL" --download --audio # Audio only python playlist.py "URL" --range 1-5 # Videos 1-5 only

Common Workflows

Research a video:

python info.py "URL" # Check what we're working with python transcript.py "URL" # Get transcript for AI analysis

Archive a podcast:

python download.py "URL" --audio # Just the audio as mp3

Download a course:

python playlist.py "URL" --download --quality 720

Output Structure

skills/youtube/output/ ├── transcripts/ # .txt transcript files ├── videos/ # Downloaded videos ├── audio/ # Extracted audio files └── info/ # JSON metadata dumps

Notes

• Video IDs work as well as full URLs

• Rate limiting: wait a few minutes between bulk operations

• Some videos have no subtitles available