- name
- youtube-summary
- description
- Automatically fetch YouTube video subtitles and generate concise summaries. Use when you need to summarize a YouTube video, get key points from a talk, or extract main ideas from long videos without watching. Supports different summary lengths and multiple languages.
YouTube Summary
Automatically get subtitles from any public YouTube video and generate a clean, structured summary with key points. Saves hours of watching long videos when you just need the main ideas.
Core Capabilities
1. Get full subtitles from any public YouTube video
- Works with videos that have auto-generated captions
- Supports multiple languages
- Outputs clean formatted text
2. Generate concise summaries
- Extracts all key points and main arguments
- Adjusts summary length based on your needs (short/medium/detailed)
- Structures output with bullet points for easy reading
3. Export results
- Save summary as markdown or text file
- Copy-paste ready for note-taking
Quick Start
Given a YouTube URL:
- Extract video ID from the URL
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ → ID: dQw4w9WgXcQ - https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ → ID: dQw4w9WgXcQ
- Fetch subtitles using the Python script:
from scripts.youtube_subtitles import get_youtube_subtitles
subtitles = get_youtube_subtitles(video_id)- Generate summary with the AI model using the subtitle text
- Format and present the result with:
- Video title and link - Executive summary (1-paragraph overview) - Key points (bulleted list) - Detailed notes (optional)
Usage Examples
Example request: "Summarize this YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyz"
Expected output:
# Video Summary: [Title]
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyz
## Executive Summary
One paragraph overview of the entire video's main message.
## Key Points
- Point 1: Main argument or finding
- Point 2: Second important topic
- Point 3: Key takeaway
- ...
## Detailed Notes (optional for longer videos)
More detailed breakdown...Language Support
- The script automatically gets the available subtitle tracks
- Default to first available track (usually the video's original language)
- Can specify preferred language (e.g., "summarize in English" or "summarize in Chinese")
Scripts
scripts/youtube_subtitles.py
Python utility to fetch subtitles from YouTube using youtube-transcript-api.
Usage:
python scripts/youtube_subtitles.py <video-id> [language-code]Requirements:
pip install youtube-transcript-apiscripts/summarize.py
Helper script to format subtitles for summarization.
When to use this skill
✅ Use when:
- You want the main ideas from a long YouTube video without watching
- You need to take notes from a lecture or talk
- You want to share key points from a video with others
- You're doing research and need to process multiple videos quickly
❌ Don't use when:
- The video is private and has no public captions
- The video has no captions/subtitles at all
- You need a full word-for-word transcription (this skill focuses on summarization)