youtube-transcript

youtube-transcript is a skill for Claude Code from michalparkola/tapestry-skills. It costs 48 tokens per session (3,316 once invoked), scanned B, original, MIT.

A tool for getting written text from YouTube videos, using captions when available and speech transcription when they are not. YouTube is a video-hosting website.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to download subtitles or transcripts from a YouTube link, optionally clean the caption file into plain text, or transcribe a video when captions are unavailable.
Why use it?
It saves you from watching a full video or copying captions by hand when you need its content as text.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: allowed-tools in frontmatter.

Good fit Use it to download subtitles or transcripts from a YouTube link, optionally clean the caption file into plain text, or transcribe a video when captions are unavailable.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/michalparkola/tapestry-skills/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 michalparkola/tapestry-skills --skill youtube-transcript
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/michalparkola/tapestry-skills

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/michalparkola/tapestry-skills/youtube-transcript/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/michalparkola/tapestry-skills/youtube-transcript)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/michalparkola/tapestry-skills/youtube-transcript"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/michalparkola/tapestry-skills/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/michalparkola/tapestry-skills/youtube-transcript"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/michalparkola/tapestry-skills/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 3,316 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. Third-party audits
  • Socket warn 18 Mar 2026
  • Snyk warn 2 Mar 2026
How audits are shown
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 $0.00048 $0.03316
Opus 5 $0.00024 $0.01658
Sonnet 5 $0.00010 $0.00663
Haiku 4.5 $0.00005 $0.00332

Measured 11d ago against content hash 7c832ec57899, 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 11d 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

Copies of this mod

3 near-identical copies found in the catalogue:

youtube-transcript/SKILL.md · 416 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 416 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 · 416 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. 11d ago First seen · 416 lines · 48 tokens per session scan B 7c832ec57899

Subscribe to this mod's changes

youtube-transcript is a skill published in the GitHub repository michalparkola/tapestry-skills (540 stars, last pushed 6mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 48 tokens to every session and 3,316 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.

Related

Other skills, from other repositories

systematic-debugging

Use when encountering any bug, test failure, or unexpected behavior, before proposing fixes.

obra/superpowers · 21 tokens

local-ai-agents

Build local-first AI agents that run entirely on a developer workstation with Microsoft Foundry Local and Qwen function-calling models. Covers Small Language Models (SLMs), the OpenAI-compatible local endpoint, sandboxed local tools, local RAG with Chroma, local MCP servers, hybrid cloud/local routing, and the…

microsoft/ai-agents-for-beginners · 200 tokens

next-cache-components-adoption

Turn on Cache Components in a Next.js app and resolve the blocking routes it surfaces. Use when the user wants to enable, adopt, or migrate to Cache Components, flip the cacheComponents flag, work through a flood of blocking-prerender / instant validation errors, run the cache-components-instant-false codemod, or…

vercel/next.js · 95 tokens

insight-error-page

Write or audit an insight-kind error page for the Next.js dev overlay. Use when creating a new errors/ .mdx page, auditing an existing one, or checking that a page matches the framework fix cards. Covers page structure, title alignment, FixCard cards with Copy prompt button, code snippets, terminology verification…

vercel/next.js · 83 tokens

next-cache-components-optimizer

Drive a Next.js route to instant navigation by setting up an agentic loop, under Cache Components / PPR, on initial load (hard navigation) and client-side navigation (soft navigation). Encode the goal as a failing @next/playwright instant() e2e and work it to green, one verified route at a time; the shipped test then…

vercel/next.js · 170 tokens

next-partial-prefetching-adoption

Turn on Partial Prefetching in a Next.js app and work through the insights it surfaces. Use when the user wants to enable or adopt Partial Prefetching, flip the partialPrefetching flag, opt routes in with export const prefetch = 'partial', audit Link prefetch={true} behavior, preserve existing prefetched UI with…

vercel/next.js · 103 tokens