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:

1. Extract video ID from the URL

   • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ → ID: dQw4w9WgXcQ
   • https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ → ID: dQw4w9WgXcQ

2. Fetch subtitles using the Python script: python

   from scripts.youtube_subtitles import get_youtube_subtitles
   subtitles = get_youtube_subtitles(video_id)
   
   

3. Generate summary with the AI model using the subtitle text

4. 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:

text

# 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:

bash

python scripts/youtube_subtitles.py <video-id> [language-code]

Requirements:

text

pip install youtube-transcript-api

scripts/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)