- name
- fetch-youtube-auto-closed-captions
- description
- Download YouTube auto-generated closed captions (VTT) with yt-dlp when a user provides a YouTube URL or video ID and wants auto-subs/transcripts; includes checking for yt-dlp and offering install guidance if missing.
YouTube auto captions via yt-dlp
Use this skill to fetch auto-generated English captions from YouTube using yt-dlp.
Workflow
- Accept a YouTube URL or video ID from the user.
- Check if
yt-dlpis available. - If missing, ask the user if they want help installing it and offer install commands.
- Run the download command or the bundled script to write auto-subs in VTT and a readable transcript in TXT.
Preferred command
Use exactly this command when running manually:
yt-dlp \
--skip-download \
--write-auto-subs \
--sub-lang en \
--sub-format vtt \
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_IDBundled script
Use scripts/download_auto_captions.sh to handle URL or ID input and an optional output directory. It writes both .vtt and a cleaned .txt transcript (timestamps/tags stripped, common non-speech cues removed, merged into sentences):
bash scripts/download_auto_captions.sh <url-or-id> [output-dir]Install guidance (ask first)
If yt-dlp is not installed, ask the user whether to install and then offer one of:
- macOS (Homebrew):
brew install yt-dlp - Python (pipx):
pipx install yt-dlp - Python (pip):
python3 -m pip install -U yt-dlp
Notes
- Output files are written as
.vttsubtitles and.txttranscripts in the chosen directory. - Auto-subs depend on what YouTube provides; some videos may not have auto-generated captions.