youtube-transcript

youtube-transcript is a skill for Claude Code from adilkalam/orca. It costs 48 tokens per session (3,311 once invoked), scanned B, a copy of youtube-transcript, MIT.

A tool for downloading text transcripts, captions, or subtitles from YouTube videos. YouTube is a video-hosting platform, and transcripts turn spoken video into text.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to fetch manual or automatic subtitles and, when needed, transcribe videos without available captions.
Why use it?
It gives you searchable text when a video’s information is easier to read or reuse than to watch.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: allowed-tools in frontmatter.

Good fit Use it to fetch manual or automatic subtitles and, when needed, transcribe videos without available captions.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/adilkalam/orca/youtube-transcript
Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

Any agent
npx skills add adilkalam/orca --skill youtube-transcript
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/adilkalam/orca

Made for: Claude Code.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for youtube-transcript

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/adilkalam/orca/youtube-transcript/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/adilkalam/orca/youtube-transcript)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/adilkalam/orca/youtube-transcript"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/adilkalam/orca/youtube-transcript/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for youtube-transcript

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/adilkalam/orca/youtube-transcript"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/adilkalam/orca/youtube-transcript.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 48 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 3,311 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan B 1 finding. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
Origin 100% copy Near-identical to another mod in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00048 $0.03311
Opus 5 $0.00024 $0.01656
Sonnet 5 $0.00010 $0.00662
Haiku 4.5 $0.00005 $0.00331

Measured 8d ago against content hash 4b90507ca72d, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-11, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade B, and why

youtube-transcript scanned grade B with 1 finding against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 8d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Asks for rootmediumPrivilege escalation

A mod that escalates privileges can change anything on the machine, not only the project.

sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y yt-dlp
Origin

This is a copy

100% identical to youtube-transcript — 35 lines differ, which has more behind it and is treated as the original. This page carries a canonical link to it rather than competing with it.

skills/youtube-transcript/SKILL.md · 419 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 419 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

YouTube Transcript Downloader

This skill helps download transcripts (subtitles/captions) from YouTube videos using yt-dlp.

When to Use This Skill

Activate this skill when the user:

  • Provides a YouTube URL and wants the transcript
  • Asks to "download transcript from YouTube"
  • Wants to "get captions" or "get subtitles" from a video
  • Asks to "transcribe a YouTube video"
  • Needs text content from a YouTube video

How It Works

Priority Order:

  1. Check if yt-dlp is installed - install if needed
  2. List available subtitles - see what's actually available
  3. Try manual subtitles first (--write-sub) - highest quality
  4. Fallback to auto-generated (--write-auto-sub) - usually available
  5. Last resort: Whisper transcription - if no subtitles exist (requires user confirmation)
  6. Confirm the download and show the user where the file is saved
  7. Optionally clean up the VTT format if the user wants plain text

Installation Check

IMPORTANT: Always check if yt-dlp is installed first:

which yt-dlp || command -v yt-dlp

If Not Installed

Attempt automatic installation based on the system:

macOS (Homebrew):

brew install yt-dlp

Linux (apt/Debian/Ubuntu):

sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y yt-dlp

Alternative (pip - works on all systems):

pip3 install yt-dlp
# or
python3 -m pip install yt-dlp

If installation fails: Inform the user they need to install yt-dlp manually and provide them with installation instructions from https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp#installation

Check Available Subtitles

ALWAYS do this first before attempting to download:

yt-dlp --list-subs "YOUTUBE_URL"

This shows what subtitle types are available without downloading anything. Look for:

  • Manual subtitles (better quality)
  • Auto-generated subtitles (usually available)
  • Available languages

Download Strategy

Option 1: Manual Subtitles (Preferred)

Try this first - highest quality, human-created:

Read the full file on GitHub · 419 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 8d ago First seen · 419 lines · 48 tokens per session scan B 4b90507ca72d

Subscribe to this mod's changes

youtube-transcript is a skill published in the GitHub repository adilkalam/orca (2 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 48 tokens to every session and 3,311 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it B with 1 finding (asks for root). It is 100% identical to youtube-transcript, differing in 35 lines, and is treated as a copy.

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