By name: get-youtube-transcript
description: Extract the transcript from a YouTube video by URL or video ID. Use when the user shares a YouTube link and wants the transcript, captions, or text content of the video. Falls back automatically if the requested language isn't available.
allowed-tools: [Bash]
user-invocable: true
argument-hint: ""
Get YouTube Transcript
Extract a full transcript from any YouTube video using the local youtube-transcript-api (no rate limits, no API key required).
State Dependencies
| Source | Location | Read | Write |
|---|---|---|---|
| Script | scripts/utilities/yt-transcript.sh |
✓ | - |
| Venv | scripts/utilities/yt_transcript_venv/ |
✓ | - |
| YouTube | External (via youtube-transcript-api) | ✓ | - |
Process
Step 1: Extract the transcript
Run the wrapper script with the URL or video ID the user provided:
scripts/utilities/yt-transcript.sh "<url-or-id>"
Options:
-l <lang>— language code (default:en). If user specifies a language, pass it.-f text— plain text output (default, best for reading)-f json— structured output with timestamps (use when user needs timestamps)
Step 2: Handle errors
If the script fails:
- Language not found — retry without
-lflag (auto-selects any available language) - Video unavailable — inform user the video may be private, deleted, or region-restricted
- No transcript available — inform user the video has no captions
Step 3: Present the transcript
Return the full transcript text to the user. If it's long (>500 lines), summarize what the video covers first, then provide the full text.
Example
User: "get me the transcript of https://youtu.be/abc123"
scripts/utilities/yt-transcript.sh "https://youtu.be/abc123"
Notes
- Uses
youtube-transcript-apiPython package — works locally with no quota - Falls back to any available language if English isn't found
- The MCP youtube-transcript tool hits rate limits; always prefer this script