youtube-content - SKILL.md Agent Skill

name: youtube-content description: | Pull a YouTube video's transcript and reshape it into summaries, chapters, threads, or blog posts.

Use when: "перескажи это видео", "сделай конспект youtube", "вытащи субтитры из видео", "summarize this YouTube video", "get the transcript", "turn this video into a blog post"

YouTube Content Tool

When to use

Use when the user shares a YouTube URL or video link, asks to summarize a video, requests a transcript, or wants to extract and reformat content from any YouTube video. Transforms transcripts into structured content (chapters, summaries, threads, blog posts).

Prerequisites

pip install youtube-transcript-api

Helper Script

SKILL_DIR is the directory containing this SKILL.md file. The script accepts any standard YouTube URL format, short links (youtu.be), shorts, embeds, live links, or a raw 11-character video ID.

# JSON output with metadata
python3 SKILL_DIR/scripts/fetch_transcript.py "https://youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID"

# Plain text (good for piping into further processing)
python3 SKILL_DIR/scripts/fetch_transcript.py "URL" --text-only

# With timestamps
python3 SKILL_DIR/scripts/fetch_transcript.py "URL" --timestamps

# Specific language with fallback chain
python3 SKILL_DIR/scripts/fetch_transcript.py "URL" --language tr,en

Output Formats

After fetching the transcript, format it based on what the user asks for. If the user did not specify a format, default to a summary.

Chapters

Group by topic shifts, output a timestamped chapter list:

00:00 Introduction — host opens with the problem statement
03:45 Background — prior work and why existing solutions fall short
12:20 Core method — walkthrough of the proposed approach
24:10 Results — benchmark comparisons and key takeaways
31:55 Q&A — audience questions on scalability and next steps

Summary

A 5-10 sentence overview covering the video's main points, key arguments, and conclusions. Written in third person, present tense.

Chapter Summaries

Chapters with a short paragraph summary for each:

## 00:00 Introduction (2 min)
The speaker introduces the topic of X and explains why it matters for Y.

## 02:15 Background (3 min)
A review of prior work in the field, covering approaches A, B, and C.

Thread (Twitter/X)

Numbered posts, each under 280 chars:

1/ Just watched an incredible talk on [topic]. Here are the key takeaways: 🧵

2/ First insight: [point]. This matters because [reason].

3/ The surprising part: [unexpected finding]. Most people assume [common belief], but the data shows otherwise.

4/ Practical takeaway: [actionable advice].

5/ Full video: [URL]

Blog Post

Full article with:

Title
Introduction paragraph
H2 sections for each major topic
Key quotes (with timestamps)
Conclusion / takeaways

Quotes

Notable quotes with timestamps:

"The most important thing is not the model size, but the data quality." — 05:32
"We found that scaling past 70B parameters gave diminishing returns." — 12:18

Workflow

Fetch the transcript using the helper script with --text-only --timestamps.
Validate: confirm the output is non-empty and in the expected language. If empty, retry without --language to get any available transcript. If still empty, tell the user the video likely has transcripts disabled.
Chunk if needed: if the transcript exceeds ~~50K characters, split into overlapping chunks (~~40K with 2K overlap) and summarize each chunk before merging.
Transform into the requested output format following the templates in the Output Formats section above — chapters, summary, chapter summaries, thread, blog post, quotes. If the user did not specify a format, default to a summary.
Verify: re-read the transformed output to check for coherence, correct timestamps, and completeness before presenting.

Error Handling

Transcript disabled: tell the user; suggest they check if subtitles are available on the video page.
Private/unavailable video: relay the error and ask the user to verify the URL.
No matching language: retry without --language to fetch any available transcript, then note the actual language to the user.
Dependency missing: run pip install youtube-transcript-api and retry.