youtube-downloader

youtube-downloader is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from cdeistopened/skill-stack. It costs 48 tokens per session (2,803 once invoked), scanned B, original, MIT.

A guide for downloading the transcript of a YouTube video, meaning its spoken words as captions or subtitles. It uses human-made captions when available and falls back to automatically generated ones.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when given a YouTube link or when you need captions, subtitles, or a text transcript saved as a readable document.
Why use it?
It saves you from manually copying or cleaning subtitles from a video.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

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.

agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/cdeistopened/skill-stack/youtube-downloader
Any agent
npx skills add cdeistopened/skill-stack --skill youtube-downloader
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/cdeistopened/skill-stack

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

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-downloader

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/cdeistopened/skill-stack/youtube-downloader.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/cdeistopened/skill-stack/youtube-downloader)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/cdeistopened/skill-stack/youtube-downloader"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/cdeistopened/skill-stack/youtube-downloader.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" 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 2,803 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan B 1 finding. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found 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 $0.00048 $0.02803
Opus 5 $0.00024 $0.01401
Sonnet 5 $0.00010 $0.00561
Haiku 4.5 $0.00005 $0.00280

Measured 5d ago against content hash 3f8aa25d8bc4, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade B, and why

youtube-downloader 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 5d 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
.claude/skills/youtube-downloader/SKILL.md · 349 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 349 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

Default Workflow:

  1. Check if yt-dlp is installed - install if needed
  2. Try manual subtitles first (--write-sub) - highest quality, human-created
  3. Fallback to auto-generated (--write-auto-sub) - usually available
  4. Convert to plain text - deduplicate and clean up VTT format
  5. Save to output directory as a markdown file with filename based on video title
  6. Automatically polish - remove filler words, fix grammar, add section headers, maintain 100% fidelity
  7. Confirm the download and show the user where the file is saved

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)

Read the full file on GitHub · 349 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. 5d ago First seen · 349 lines · 48 tokens per session scan B 3f8aa25d8bc4

Subscribe to this mod's changes

youtube-downloader is a skill published in the GitHub repository cdeistopened/skill-stack (27 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 48 tokens to every session and 2,803 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it B with 1 finding (asks for root). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

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