Agent skill · software engineering · steipete
video-transcript-downloader
yt-dlp downloads: video, audio, subtitles, transcripts, clips, playlists.
Why this skill is useful
Adds an executable script for downloading and processing video transcripts that extends the AI's capabilities beyond general knowledge.
What it needs
Requires ffmpeg, yt-dlp installed locally. About 1k tokens when loaded. Last updated 2026-08-06. 6,510 stars on the source repository.
What this skill does
Video Transcript Downloader ./scripts/vtd.js can: Print a transcript as a clean paragraph (timestamps optional). Download video/audio/subtitles. Transcript behavior: YouTube: fetch via youtube-transcript-plus when possible. Otherwise: pull subtitles via yt-dlp, then clean into a paragraph. Setup CLI syntax: Subcommands support focused help without requiring --url. Transcript (default: clean paragraph) Download video / audio / subtitles Formats (list + choose) List available formats (format ids, resolution, container, audio-only, etc): Download a specific format id (example): Prefer MP4 container without re-encoding (remux when possible): Notes Default transcript output is a single paragraph. Use --timestamps only when asked. Bracketed cues like [Music] are stripped by default; keep them via --keep-brackets. Pass extra yt-dlp args after -- for transcript fallback, download, audio, subs, formats. Troubleshooting (only when needed) Missing yt-dlp / ffmpeg: Verify:
How to use it
Reference it in AdaL, Claude Code, Cursor or any coding agent — nothing to install:
@skills steipete/video-transcript-downloader