yt-summary

name: yt-summary description: "Summarizes YouTube videos by extracting transcripts and producing structured summaries. Use when user pastes a YouTube URL and wants a summary, key takeaways, or notes from a video. Supports youtube.com and youtu.be links." allowed-tools: Read, Bash, WebFetch, WebSearch, Write

YouTube Video Summarizer

Extracts transcripts from YouTube videos and produces concise, structured summaries.

Input Detection

Detect input from $ARGUMENTS:

1. YouTube URL (youtube.com, youtu.be) — extract video ID and fetch transcript
2. Flags — strip before processing (see below)
3. Non-YouTube input — inform user this skill is for YouTube videos only

Flags

• --brief — short summary with key takeaways only (no section breakdown)
• --timestamps — include approximate timestamps for key sections
• --bullets — output as bullet points only, no prose

Flags can appear anywhere in $ARGUMENTS. Strip them before processing.

Transcript Extraction

Extract the video ID from the URL (v= param, or path segment for youtu.be links).

Use nix-shell for ephemeral transcript fetching — no permanent installation:

nix-shell -p python3Packages.youtube-transcript-api --run 'python3 -c "
from youtube_transcript_api import YouTubeTranscriptApi
ytt = YouTubeTranscriptApi()
transcript = ytt.fetch(\"<VIDEO_ID>\")
for entry in transcript:
    print(entry.text)
"' 2>&1 | grep -v '^these ' | grep -v '^copying ' | grep -v '^  /nix'

Redirect stderr to stdout (2>&1) so nix download noise is captured, then filter it out.

Fallback chain:

1. nix-shell + youtube-transcript-api (primary — works for any public video, no API key needed)
2. If nix is unavailable, try: yt-dlp --write-auto-sub --skip-download --sub-lang en -o "/tmp/%(id)s" <URL> then read the generated .vtt file
3. If both fail, ask the user to paste the transcript text directly

Never attempt to summarize placeholder/error text. If extraction fails, stop and ask for content.

Timestamp Extraction (when --timestamps flag used)

Use this variant to capture start times:

nix-shell -p python3Packages.youtube-transcript-api --run 'python3 -c "
from youtube_transcript_api import YouTubeTranscriptApi
ytt = YouTubeTranscriptApi()
transcript = ytt.fetch(\"<VIDEO_ID>\")
for entry in transcript:
    minutes = int(entry.start // 60)
    seconds = int(entry.start % 60)
    print(f\"[{minutes:02d}:{seconds:02d}] {entry.text}\")
"' 2>&1 | grep -v '^these ' | grep -v '^copying ' | grep -v '^  /nix'

Output Format

Default Summary (Detailed)

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🎬 [Video Title — inferred from content]
🔗 [YouTube URL]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

**TL;DR:** [2-3 sentence summary of the entire video]

**Key Takeaways:**
1. [Most important point]
2. [Second most important point]
3. [Third most important point]
(up to 5-7 takeaways depending on video length)

**Who's talking:** [Speaker/channel context if identifiable]
**Who it's for:** [Target audience]

**Section Breakdown:**

### [Section 1 Title] [timestamp if available]
[2-3 sentence summary]

### [Section 2 Title] [timestamp if available]
[2-3 sentence summary]

...

**Notable Quotes:**
- "[Exact or near-exact quote]"
- "[Another quote]"

**Links/Resources Mentioned:**
- [Any tools, books, websites referenced in the video]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

With --brief

Shorter output — key takeaways only, no section breakdown:

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🎬 [Video Title — inferred from content]
🔗 [YouTube URL]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

**TL;DR:** [2-3 sentence summary of the entire video]

**Key Takeaways:**
1. [Most important point]
2. [Second most important point]
3. [Third most important point]
(up to 5-7 takeaways depending on video length)

**Who's talking:** [Speaker/channel context if identifiable]
**Who it's for:** [Target audience]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

With --bullets

Replace all prose with bullet points:

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🎬 [Video Title]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

- [Key point 1]
- [Key point 2]
- [Key point 3]
...
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Save as Note

After displaying the summary, ask the user if they want to save it as a note.

If yes:

1. Resolve the notes directory: ~/.dotfiles/.claude/notes/ (use $HOME to expand ~ at runtime)
2. Create the directory if it doesn't exist: mkdir -p "$HOME/.dotfiles/.claude/notes/"
3. Filename: YYYY-MM-DD-[slugified-video-title].md
4. Format the note as markdown with frontmatter:

   ---
   source: [YouTube URL]
   date: YYYY-MM-DD
   speaker: [Speaker name if identified]
   type: yt-summary
   ---
   

5. Write the full summary (matching whichever format was used — default, detailed, bullets) as the note body
6. Confirm save path to user

Summary Principles

• Be concise — the point is to save the viewer time
• Preserve specifics — keep concrete numbers, names, tools, and actionable details
• Skip filler — ignore intros, outros, subscribe reminders, sponsor segments
• Note bias — if the video is selling something, briefly note that in the speaker context
• Non-English content — if transcript is not English, summarize in English but note original language