get-youtube-transcript

Get YouTube Transcript

Fetch transcripts from YouTube videos via uvx --from youtube-transcript-api youtube_transcript_api.

Argument Parsing

Extract video ID(s) and options from $ARGUMENTS:

• YouTube URLs: Extract video ID from patterns like:
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID
  • https://youtu.be/VIDEO_ID
  • https://www.youtube.com/embed/VIDEO_ID
  • https://youtube.com/shorts/VIDEO_ID
• Bare video IDs: Use directly (11-character alphanumeric strings with - and _)
• Multiple videos: Space-separated URLs or IDs are supported

Supported Options

Users may specify these inline with the URL/ID:

Option	Description
--languages or language name (e.g., "in German")	Preferred transcript language(s)
--translate <lang> or "translate to <language>"	Translate transcript to target language
--format <fmt>	Output format: text (default), json, pretty, srt, webvtt
--list or "list languages"	List available transcript languages
--exclude-generated	Skip auto-generated transcripts
--exclude-manually-created	Skip manually created transcripts

Workflow

Step 1: Parse Input

Extract video ID(s) from the provided arguments. If no arguments given, ask the user for a YouTube URL or video ID.

Step 2: Determine Intent

Based on the arguments, determine if the user wants to:

1. List available transcripts — if --list or "list languages" is mentioned
2. Fetch transcript — default action

Step 3: Execute

List Transcripts

uvx --from youtube-transcript-api youtube_transcript_api VIDEO_ID --list-transcripts

Fetch Transcript

Build the command from parsed options:

uvx --from youtube-transcript-api youtube_transcript_api VIDEO_ID [OPTIONS]

Default flags when no format is specified: --format text

Language handling:

• If user specifies a language (e.g., "in German"), map to ISO 639-1 code and use --languages de
• If user asks to translate (e.g., "translate to French"), use --translate fr
• If no language specified, omit --languages to get the default transcript

Step 4: Present Results

• Short transcripts (under 200 lines): Display directly in the conversation
• Long transcripts (200+ lines): Save to a file and tell the user where it was saved
• If the user specified a file path, always save there regardless of length
• When saving, use a descriptive filename: <video-id>.txt (or appropriate extension for the format)

Error Handling

• No transcript available: Inform the user and suggest --list-transcripts to check available languages
• Invalid video ID/URL: Ask the user to verify the URL
• Network errors: Report the error and suggest retrying

Examples

User: "get transcript from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ" → uvx --from youtube-transcript-api youtube_transcript_api dQw4w9WgXcQ --format text

User: "youtube transcript dQw4w9WgXcQ in German" → uvx --from youtube-transcript-api youtube_transcript_api dQw4w9WgXcQ --languages de --format text

User: "get subtitles for dQw4w9WgXcQ translated to French as srt" → uvx --from youtube-transcript-api youtube_transcript_api dQw4w9WgXcQ --translate fr --format srt

User: "what languages are available for dQw4w9WgXcQ" → uvx --from youtube-transcript-api youtube_transcript_api dQw4w9WgXcQ --list-transcripts