Fetch and read transcripts from YouTube videos

Youtube watcher

by gooseworks-ai · MIT license · ★ 1,220 on GitHub · v1.0.0 · updated Sep 21

Fetch and read transcripts from YouTube videos. Use when you need to summarize a video, answer questions about its content, or extract information from it.

---
name: youtube-watcher
description: Fetch and read transcripts from YouTube videos. Use when you need to summarize a video, answer questions about its content, or extract information from it.
author: michael gathara
version: 1.0.0
triggers:
  - "watch youtube"
  - "summarize video"
  - "video transcript"
  - "youtube summary"
  - "analyze video"
metadata: {"clawdbot":{"emoji":"📺","requires":{"bins":["yt-dlp"]},"install":[{"id":"brew","kind":"brew","formula":"yt-dlp","bins":["yt-dlp"],"label":"Install yt-dlp (brew)"},{"id":"pip","kind":"pip","package":"yt-dlp","bins":["yt-dlp"],"label":"Install yt-dlp (pip)"}]}}
---

# YouTube Watcher

Fetch transcripts from YouTube videos to enable summarization, QA, and content extraction.

Overview

Fetch transcripts from YouTube videos to enable summarization, QA, and content extraction.

Manual install (npx, ZIP)

Claude Codenpx skills add gooseworks-ai/goose-skills --skill youtube-watcher -g -a claude-code

Claude Code (manual)

mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && curl -sL https://codeload.github.com/gooseworks-ai/goose-skills/tar.gz/615c685f34f8 \
  | tar -xz -C ~/.claude/skills --strip-components=4 goose-skills-615c685f34f8/skills/research-tools/capabilities/youtube-watcher

Windows (PowerShell)

New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force "$HOME\.claude\skills" | Out-Null; Invoke-WebRequest "https://m.agentalley.io/zip/3e4359c095b2a26d2e00/youtube-watcher.zip" -OutFile "$env:TEMP\youtube-watcher.zip"; Expand-Archive "$env:TEMP\youtube-watcher.zip" -DestinationPath "$HOME\.claude\skills" -Force

Claude.ai / desktopDownload the ZIP and upload it under Settings → Capabilities → Skills.

Codex, Cursor, other agentsPoint them at SKILL.md. The other files are plain text.

Connects with Agent Alley MCP · agentalley.io/mcp

Files included

SKILL.md1.5 KB
skill.meta.json283 B
scripts/1 file · 2.2 KB

Read the files here

gooseworks-ai/615c6853 files

SKILL.md

Show the full text49 lines

youtube-watcher/SKILL.md49 lines · 1.5 KB

PreviewCode

Outline

RawView on GitHub

YouTube Watcher

Fetch transcripts from YouTube videos to enable summarization, QA, and content extraction.

Usage

Get Transcript

Retrieve the text transcript of a video.

python3 {baseDir}/scripts/get_transcript.py "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID"

Examples

Summarize a video:

Get the transcript:

python3 {baseDir}/scripts/get_transcript.py "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"

Read the output and summarize it for the user.

Find specific information:

Get the transcript.
Search the text for keywords or answer the user's question based on the content.

Notes

Requires yt-dlp to be installed and available in the PATH.
Works with videos that have closed captions (CC) or auto-generated subtitles.
If a video has no subtitles, the script will fail with an error message.

1	---
2	name: youtube-watcher
3	description: Fetch and read transcripts from YouTube videos. Use when you need to summarize a video, answer questions about its content, or extract information from it.
4	author: michael gathara
5	version: 1.0.0
6	triggers:
7	- "watch youtube"
8	- "summarize video"
9	- "video transcript"
10	- "youtube summary"
11	- "analyze video"
12	metadata: {"clawdbot":{"emoji":"📺","requires":{"bins":["yt-dlp"]},"install":[{"id":"brew","kind":"brew","formula":"yt-dlp","bins":["yt-dlp"],"label":"Install yt-dlp (brew)"},{"id":"pip","kind":"pip","package":"yt-dlp","bins":["yt-dlp"],"label":"Install yt-dlp (pip)"}]}}
13	---
14
15	# YouTube Watcher
16
17	Fetch transcripts from YouTube videos to enable summarization, QA, and content extraction.
18
19	## Usage
20
21	### Get Transcript
22
23	Retrieve the text transcript of a video.
24
25	```bash
26	python3 {baseDir}/scripts/get_transcript.py "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID"
27	```
28
29	## Examples
30
31	Summarize a video:
32
33	1. Get the transcript:
34	```bash
35	python3 {baseDir}/scripts/get_transcript.py "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"
36	```
37	2. Read the output and summarize it for the user.
38
39	Find specific information:
40
41	1. Get the transcript.
42	2. Search the text for keywords or answer the user's question based on the content.
43
44	## Notes
45
46	- Requires `yt-dlp` to be installed and available in the PATH.
47	- Works with videos that have closed captions (CC) or auto-generated subtitles.
48	- If a video has no subtitles, the script will fail with an error message.
49