youtube-watcher

Name: youtube-watcher
Availability: InStock
Author: merkyorlynn

Fetch YouTube video transcripts and convert WebVTT subtitles into plain text.

37|4|Updated Mar 31, 2026

Search Tags:#transcript #summarization #youtube #yt-dlp #content analysis #information extraction #subtitle

Ready to run

npx skills add https://github.com/MerkyorLynn/Lynn --skill youtube-watcher-merkyorlynn

💬 Prompt for ChatGPT / Claude Chat▼

Please help me install this Agent Skill.
Skill: youtube-watcher
Source: https://github.com/MerkyorLynn/Lynn/tree/main/skills2set/youtube-watcher
Command: npx skills add https://github.com/MerkyorLynn/Lynn --skill youtube-watcher-merkyorlynn

SYSTEM DOCUMENTATION & REQUIREMENTS

💡 This Skill requires yt-dlp, and includes scripts (resource) components.

What problem does it solve?

You need a reliable way to obtain the text transcript of a YouTube video so you can summarize it, ask questions about its contents, or extract key information without manually watching.

Core Features & Use Cases

Transcript fetching: Retrieves subtitles using yt-dlp, preferring English and supporting both closed captions and auto-generated subtitles.
Transcript cleaning: Converts WebVTT content into plain text by removing headers, timestamps, and non-content markers.
Summarization & Q&A: Enables downstream summarization, keyword search, and question answering based on the transcript text.

Quick Start

Ask the AI to fetch the transcript for a given YouTube URL, then summarize the resulting plain-text transcript.

Frequently Asked Questions about youtube-watcher

High-intent search queries and answers about installing and using this skill.

FAQPage Schema

How do I extract a transcript from a YouTube video?▼

To extract a YouTube transcript, the Skill fetches subtitles via yt-dlp and converts WebVTT content into plain text by removing timestamps and headers. This provides a cleaned transcript ready for reading or analysis.

Do I need yt-dlp to download YouTube subtitles?▼

Yes, you need yt-dlp installed to download YouTube subtitle tracks. The Skill relies on this dependency to retrieve both closed captions and auto-generated subtitles for transcript extraction.

Can I summarize a YouTube video using its transcript?▼

Yes, you can summarize a YouTube video by fetching its cleaned plain-text transcript. The output supports downstream workflows like summarization, keyword search, and question answering grounded in the subtitle text.

What happens when YouTube subtitles are unavailable for a video?▼

When YouTube subtitles are unavailable, the transcript fetching process fails clearly. The Skill explicitly reports the failure rather than attempting to guess or generate missing content.

Does the transcript cleaning remove timestamps from WebVTT files?▼

Yes, transcript cleaning removes WebVTT artifacts like timestamps and headers. This conversion results in readable plain text suitable for downstream information extraction and content analysis.