video-downloader

video-downloader is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from cosmicstack-labs/mercury-agent-skills. It costs 29 tokens per session (4,384 once invoked), scanned D, original, MIT.

A guide to downloading videos from YouTube, Bilibili, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Vimeo, Twitch, and many other sites with yt-dlp. It covers formats, playlists, authentication cookies, and download limits.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to download individual videos or playlists, select audio and video formats, merge streams, and handle logged-in content.
Why use it?
It helps you save videos or audio in a chosen format and quality instead of relying on each site's download options.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Written for no agent in particular: nothing here depends on one.

Good fit Use it to download individual videos or playlists, select audio and video formats, merge streams, and handle logged-in content.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/cosmicstack-labs/mercury-agent-skills/video-downloader
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 cosmicstack-labs/mercury-agent-skills --skill video-downloader
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/cosmicstack-labs/mercury-agent-skills

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 video-downloader

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/cosmicstack-labs/mercury-agent-skills/video-downloader/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/cosmicstack-labs/mercury-agent-skills/video-downloader)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/cosmicstack-labs/mercury-agent-skills/video-downloader"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/cosmicstack-labs/mercury-agent-skills/video-downloader/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 video-downloader

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/cosmicstack-labs/mercury-agent-skills/video-downloader"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/cosmicstack-labs/mercury-agent-skills/video-downloader.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 29 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 4,384 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan D 2 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
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 5.1 $0.00029 $0.04384
Opus 5 $0.00015 $0.02192
Sonnet 5 $0.00006 $0.00877
Haiku 4.5 $0.00003 $0.00438

Measured 8d ago against content hash 11abfa0d5573, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-11, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade D, and why

video-downloader scanned grade D with 2 findings 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 install yt-dlp ffmpeg

Reaches for credential fileshighPrivilege escalation

SSH keys, cloud credentials, git-credentials, .npmrc, /etc/shadow: reading these is how a config file becomes a credential leak.

# Use netrc file (~/.netrc)
categories/media-download/video-downloader/SKILL.md · 563 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 563 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Video Downloader

Download videos from thousands of sites using yt-dlp — the most powerful and actively maintained video downloading tool. This skill covers installation, configuration, format selection, playlist management, and optimization techniques.

Core Principles

1. Choose the Right Tool

yt-dlp is the successor to youtube-dl and is actively maintained with support for over 1,000 sites. It handles YouTube, Bilibili, Twitter/X, Instagram, TikTok, Vimeo, Twitch, and countless others through extractors.

2. Understand Format Selection

Video and audio are often delivered as separate streams (DASH). yt-dlp can merge them automatically with ffmpeg, or you can download them individually. Understanding formats means you get exactly the quality you need without wasting bandwidth.

3. Respect Rate Limits and Servers

Don't hammer servers with concurrent downloads. Use rate limiting, randomized delays, and reasonable thread counts to avoid IP blocks and maintain access.

4. Handle Authentication Properly

Some content requires authentication. Use cookies from your browser session rather than passing passwords directly. This is more reliable and avoids credential exposure in command history.


Installation and Setup

macOS (Homebrew)

# Install yt-dlp
brew install yt-dlp

# Install ffmpeg for post-processing (merging, conversion)
brew install ffmpeg

Linux (Ubuntu/Debian)

# Latest version via pip (recommended)
python3 -m pip install -U yt-dlp

# Or via apt (may be outdated)
sudo apt install yt-dlp ffmpeg

Windows

# Via pip (recommended)
python -m pip install -U yt-dlp

# Via winget
winget install yt-dlp

# Download standalone binary
# https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases

Verify Installation

yt-dlp --version
yt-dlp --help | head -20

Basic Download Commands

Simple Video Download

# Download best quality video+audio
yt-dlp "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"

# Download with specific output template
yt-dlp -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" "https://youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID"

Read the full file on GitHub · 563 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 · 563 lines · 29 tokens per session scan D 11abfa0d5573

Subscribe to this mod's changes

video-downloader is a skill published in the GitHub repository cosmicstack-labs/mercury-agent-skills (471 stars, last pushed 17d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 29 tokens to every session and 4,384 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it D with 2 findings (asks for root, reaches for credential files). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-09-03.

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