Youtube-skills captions

Extract closed captions and subtitles from YouTube videos. Use when the user asks for captions, closed captions, CC, accessibility text, or wants to read what was said in a video. Supports timestamps and multiple languages. Great for deaf/HoH accessibility, content review, quoting, and translation.

install

source · Clone the upstream repo

git clone https://github.com/ZeroPointRepo/youtube-skills

Claude Code · Install into ~/.claude/skills/

T=$(mktemp -d) && git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/ZeroPointRepo/youtube-skills "$T" && mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && cp -r "$T/skills/captions" ~/.claude/skills/zeropointrepo-youtube-skills-captions-4e0fbf && rm -rf "$T"

manifest: skills/captions/SKILL.md

source content

Captions

Extract closed captions from YouTube videos via TranscriptAPI.com.

Setup

$TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY

is not set, help the user create an account (100 free credits, no card):

Step 1 — Register: Ask user for their email.

node ./scripts/tapi-auth.js register --email USER_EMAIL

→ OTP sent to email. Ask user: "Check your email for a 6-digit verification code."

Step 2 — Verify: Once user provides the OTP:

node ./scripts/tapi-auth.js verify --token TOKEN_FROM_STEP_1 --otp CODE

API key saved to your shell profile and agent config. Ready to use.

Manual option: transcriptapi.com/signup → Dashboard → API Keys.

GET /api/v2/youtube/transcript

curl -s "https://transcriptapi.com/api/v2/youtube/transcript\
?video_url=VIDEO_URL&format=json&include_timestamp=true&send_metadata=true" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY"

Param	Required	Default	Values
`video_url`	yes	—	YouTube URL or video ID
`format`	no	`json`	`json` (structured), `text` (plain)
`include_timestamp`	no	`true`	`true` , `false`
`send_metadata`	no	`false`	`true` , `false`

Response (

format=json

— best for accessibility/timing):

{
  "video_id": "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "language": "en",
  "transcript": [
    { "text": "We're no strangers to love", "start": 18.0, "duration": 3.5 },
    { "text": "You know the rules and so do I", "start": 21.5, "duration": 2.8 }
  ],
  "metadata": { "title": "...", "author_name": "...", "thumbnail_url": "..." }
}

```
start
```
: seconds from video start
```
duration
```
: how long caption is displayed

Response (

format=text

— readable):

{
  "video_id": "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "language": "en",
  "transcript": "[00:00:18] We're no strangers to love\n[00:00:21] You know the rules..."
}

Tips

Use
```
format=json
```
for sync'd captions (accessibility tools, timing analysis).
Use
```
format=text
```
with
```
include_timestamp=false
```
for clean reading.
Auto-generated captions are available for most videos; manual CC is higher quality.

Errors

Code	Meaning	Action
402	No credits	transcriptapi.com/billing
404	No captions	Video doesn't have CC enabled
408	Timeout	Retry once after 2s

1 credit per request. Free tier: 100 credits, 300 req/min.