Get YouTube Transcript (Raw)

When to use

Use when you need the raw transcript (plus YouTube title/description) saved to raw/ for later distillation.

Keywords: youtube, transcript, captions, ytt, raw, capture

Inputs

Required:

• url (string): YouTube URL (e.g., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=... or https://youtu.be/...)

Optional:

• title_hint (string): Used only if ytt can’t provide a title.

Outputs

This skill produces:

1. A new Markdown file in raw/ named YYYYMMDD-HHMMSSZ--<slug>.md
2. YAML front matter aligned with docs/distillation/distillation-pipeline.md:
   • title (best-effort)
   • source_url (the provided URL)
   • captured_at (UTC ISO timestamp)
   • capture_type: youtube_transcript
   • capture_tool: ytt
   • raw_format: markdown
   • status: captured
3. Body content: the raw transcript text emitted by ytt (no summarization).

On failure in “fetch” mode, the script exits non-zero and does not write a placeholder raw note.

Prerequisites

• ytt (this repo’s YouTube transcript utility)
• python3 (used by the bundled script for slugging and safe YAML string escaping)

Quick start

Capture directly (uses ytt fetch --no-copy internally):

./scripts/ytraw "<youtube_url>"

If the current environment can’t access YouTube (common in sandboxes), run ytt locally and pipe:

ytt fetch --no-copy "<youtube_url>" | ./scripts/ytraw

Manual execution (Fallback)

If you encounter persistent issues capturing a transcript within the sandbox (e.g., network restrictions or tool failures), inform the user they can run the script manually on their local machine.

The script ./scripts/ytraw is designed to extract the URL directly from the clipboard if no arguments are provided.

Instructions for the user:

1. Copy the YouTube URL to your clipboard.
2. Run the following command in your terminal:
   bashCopy

   ./scripts/ytraw
   

3. If manual adjustments are required, you can edit the file directly. If you prefer the model to perform adjustments, share the file path or URL with it.

Optional: shell alias (zsh)

Add to ~/.zshrc:

ytraw () { ytt fetch --no-copy "$1" | /path/to/repo/scripts/ytraw --from-stdin }

References

• Pipeline and front matter schema: docs/distillation/distillation-pipeline.md