YouTube Transcript Extraction
Extract subtitles/transcripts from a YouTube video URL and save them as a local file.
Input YouTube URL: $ARGUMENTS
Step 1: Verify URL and Get Video Information
- Verify URL Format: Confirm the input is a valid YouTube URL (supports
youtube.com/watch?v=oryoutu.be/formats). - Get Video Information:
- If yt-dlp is available, prefer yt-dlp --get-title "[VIDEO_URL]". - If using browser automation, extract the title from the page (via snapshot or document.title) for file naming.
Step 2: CLI Quick Extraction (Priority Attempt)
Use command-line tools to quickly extract subtitles.
- Check Tool Availability: Execute
which yt-dlp.
- If yt-dlp is found, proceed to subtitle download. - If yt-dlp is NOT found, skip immediately to Step 3.
- Execute Subtitle Download (Only if
yt-dlpis found):# Get the title first (try chrome first) yt-dlp --cookies-from-browser=chrome --get-title "[VIDEO_URL]" # Download subtitles yt-dlp --cookies-from-browser=chrome --write-auto-sub --write-sub --sub-lang zh-Hans,zh-Hant,en --skip-download --output "<Video Title>.%(ext)s" "[VIDEO_URL]"
- Tip: Always add --cookies-from-browser to avoid sign-in restrictions. Default to chrome. - Retry Logic: If yt-dlp fails with a browser error (e.g., "Could not open Chrome"), ask the user to specify their available browser (e.g., firefox, safari, edge) and retry.
- Verify Results:
- Check the command exit code. - Exit code 0 (Success): Subtitles have been saved locally, task complete. - Exit code non-0 (Failure): - If error is related to browser/cookies, ask user for correct browser and retry Step 2. - If other errors (e.g., video unavailable), proceed to Step 3.
Step 3: Browser Automation (Fallback)
When the CLI method fails or yt-dlp is missing, use browser UI automation to extract subtitles.
- Check Tool Availability:
- Check if chrome-devtools-mcp tools (specifically mcp__chrome__new_page) are available. - CRITICAL CHECK: If chrome-devtools-mcp is NOT available AND yt-dlp was NOT found in Step 2: - STOP execution. - Notify the User: "Unable to proceed. Please either install yt-dlp (for fast CLI extraction) OR configure chrome-devtools-mcp (for browser automation)."
- Initialize Browser Session (If tools are available): Call
mcp__chrome__new_pageto open the video URL.
3.2 Analyze Page State
Call mcp__chrome__take_snapshot to read the page accessibility tree.
3.3 Expand Video Description
*Reason: The "Show transcript" button is usually hidden within the collapsed description area.*
- Search the snapshot for a button labeled "...more", "...更多", or "Show more" (usually located in the description block below the video title).
- Call
mcp__chrome__clickto click that button.
3.4 Open Transcript Panel
- Call
mcp__chrome__take_snapshotto get the updated UI snapshot. - Search for a button labeled "Show transcript", "显示转录稿", or "内容转文字".
- Call
mcp__chrome__clickto click that button.
3.5 Extract Content via DOM
*Reason: Directly reading the accessibility tree for long lists is slow and consumes many tokens; DOM injection is more efficient.*
Call mcp__chrome__evaluate_script to execute the following JavaScript:
() => {
// Select all transcript segment containers
const segments = document.querySelectorAll("ytd-transcript-segment-renderer");
if (!segments.length) return "BUFFERING"; // Retry if empty
// Iterate and format as "timestamp text"
return Array.from(segments)
.map((seg) => {
const time = seg.querySelector(".segment-timestamp")?.innerText.trim();
const text = seg.querySelector(".segment-text")?.innerText.trim();
return `${time} ${text}`;
})
.join("\n");
};If it returns "BUFFERING", wait a few seconds and retry.
3.6 Save and Cleanup
- Use the Write tool to save the extracted text as a local file (e.g.,
<Video Title>.txt). - Call
mcp__chrome__close_pageto release resources.
Output Requirements
- Save the subtitle file to the current working directory.
- Filename format:
<Video Title>.txt - File content format: Each line should be
Timestamp Subtitle Text. - Report upon completion: File path, subtitle language, total number of lines.