YouTube Full

Complete YouTube toolkit via TranscriptAPI.com. Everything in one skill.

Setup

If $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY is not set, read references/auth-setup.md and follow the instructions there to get and store the key.

Required Headers

Every request needs two headers:

• Authorization: Bearer $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY
• User-Agent: your agent's name and version if known (e.g. HermesAgent/0.11.0, ClaudeCode/1.0). Version is optional — agent name alone is fine. Do not omit this header or send a bare default — Cloudflare will return a 403 (error code 1010) and block the request.

API Reference

Full OpenAPI spec: transcriptapi.com/openapi.json — consult this for the latest parameters and schemas.

Transcript — 1 credit

curl -s "https://transcriptapi.com/api/v2/youtube/transcript\
?video_url=VIDEO_URL&format=text&include_timestamp=true&send_metadata=true" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY" \
  -H "User-Agent: YourAgent/1.0"

Response (format=json):

{
  "video_id": "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "language": "en",
  "transcript": [{ "text": "...", "start": 18.0, "duration": 3.5 }],
  "metadata": { "title": "...", "author_name": "...", "author_url": "..." }
}

Video Info & Metadata

# Free — languages available for the transcript endpoint
curl -s "https://transcriptapi.com/api/v2/youtube/info?video_url=VIDEO_URL" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY" \
  -H "User-Agent: YourAgent/1.0"

# 1 credit — rich metadata (views, likes, description, duration, tags)
curl -s "https://transcriptapi.com/api/v2/youtube/video/metadata\
?video_url=VIDEO_URL&include=details,related" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY" \
  -H "User-Agent: YourAgent/1.0"

include on video/metadata accepts details and/or related. Naming: /video/metadata was previously /video/info — the old path still works but is deprecated.

Search — 1 credit/page

# Videos
curl -s "https://transcriptapi.com/api/v2/youtube/search?q=QUERY&type=video&limit=20" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY" \
  -H "User-Agent: YourAgent/1.0"

# Channels, playlists, or movies
curl -s "https://transcriptapi.com/api/v2/youtube/search?q=QUERY&type=channel&limit=10" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY" \
  -H "User-Agent: YourAgent/1.0"

Channels

All channel endpoints accept channel — an @handle, channel URL, or UC... channel ID. No need to resolve first.

Resolve handle — FREE

curl -s "https://transcriptapi.com/api/v2/youtube/channel/resolve?input=@TED" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY" \
  -H "User-Agent: YourAgent/1.0"

Response: {"channel_id": "UC...", "resolved_from": "@TED"}

Latest 15 videos — FREE

curl -s "https://transcriptapi.com/api/v2/youtube/channel/latest?channel=@TED" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY" \
  -H "User-Agent: YourAgent/1.0"

Returns exact viewCount and ISO published timestamps.

Channel feed (videos/shorts/streams) — 1 credit/page

# First page (100 items, tab defaults to "videos")
curl -s "https://transcriptapi.com/api/v2/youtube/channel/videos?channel=@NASA&tab=videos" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY" \
  -H "User-Agent: YourAgent/1.0"

# Most-viewed first (channel Videos tab, ~30 items)
curl -s "https://transcriptapi.com/api/v2/youtube/channel/videos?channel=@NASA&sort=popular" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY" \
  -H "User-Agent: YourAgent/1.0"

# Next pages (repeat the same tab AND sort)
curl -s "https://transcriptapi.com/api/v2/youtube/channel/videos?continuation=TOKEN&sort=popular" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY" \
  -H "User-Agent: YourAgent/1.0"

Provide exactly one of channel or continuation. tab is videos (default), shorts, or streams. Response includes continuation_token and has_more.

Sorting. Add sort=latest, popular, or oldest to channel/videos to get a channel's videos in the order you want, for example its most-popular uploads first. A sorted page returns about 30 videos (an unsorted page returns about 100), and every page costs the same 1 credit.

When paging, send the same sort on each request.

Item fields. Every item carries members_only, true only when YouTube badges it "Members only", and those items have no viewCountText. tab=streams items carry lengthText and publishedTimeText (for example Streamed 2 years ago); tab=shorts returns null for both, because YouTube's Shorts grid publishes neither. On the channel-tab feeds (tab=videos with sort, tab=shorts, tab=streams) channelId, channelTitle, channelHandle and index are null.

Search within channel — 1 credit

curl -s "https://transcriptapi.com/api/v2/youtube/channel/search\
?channel=@TED&q=QUERY&limit=30" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY" \
  -H "User-Agent: YourAgent/1.0"

Channel profile — 1 credit

curl -s "https://transcriptapi.com/api/v2/youtube/channel/info?channel=@TED" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY" \
  -H "User-Agent: YourAgent/1.0"

Returns title, handle, verified flag, subscriber/video counts, description, tags, thumbnails, banners, and availableTabs.

Channel playlists — 1 credit/page

curl -s "https://transcriptapi.com/api/v2/youtube/channel/playlists?channel=@TED" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY" \
  -H "User-Agent: YourAgent/1.0"

Returns each playlist's playlistId, title, url, videoCountText — feed a playlistId into the Playlists endpoint below.

Channel community posts — 1 credit/page

curl -s "https://transcriptapi.com/api/v2/youtube/channel/posts?channel=@TED" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY" \
  -H "User-Agent: YourAgent/1.0"

Channel curated sections — 1 credit

curl -s "https://transcriptapi.com/api/v2/youtube/channel/sections?channel=@TED" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY" \
  -H "User-Agent: YourAgent/1.0"

tab is featured (default, Home page), podcasts, or releases.

Playlists — 1 credit/page

Accepts playlist — a YouTube playlist URL or playlist ID.

# First page
curl -s "https://transcriptapi.com/api/v2/youtube/playlist/videos?playlist=PL_ID" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY" \
  -H "User-Agent: YourAgent/1.0"

# Next pages
curl -s "https://transcriptapi.com/api/v2/youtube/playlist/videos?continuation=TOKEN" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY" \
  -H "User-Agent: YourAgent/1.0"

Valid ID prefixes: PL, UU, LL, FL, OL. Response includes playlist_info, results, continuation_token, has_more.

Credit Costs

Validation Rules

Errors

Typical Workflows

Research workflow: search → pick videos → fetch transcripts

# 1. Search
curl -s "https://transcriptapi.com/api/v2/youtube/search\
?q=machine+learning+explained&limit=5" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY" \
  -H "User-Agent: YourAgent/1.0"
# 2. Transcript
curl -s "https://transcriptapi.com/api/v2/youtube/transcript\
?video_url=VIDEO_ID&format=text&include_timestamp=true&send_metadata=true" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY" \
  -H "User-Agent: YourAgent/1.0"

Channel monitoring: latest (free) → transcript

# 1. Latest uploads (free — pass @handle directly)
curl -s "https://transcriptapi.com/api/v2/youtube/channel/latest?channel=@TED" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY" \
  -H "User-Agent: YourAgent/1.0"
# 2. Transcript of latest
curl -s "https://transcriptapi.com/api/v2/youtube/transcript\
?video_url=VIDEO_ID&format=text&include_timestamp=true&send_metadata=true" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY" \
  -H "User-Agent: YourAgent/1.0"

Free tier: 100 credits, 300 req/min. Starter ($5/mo): 1,000 credits.