Fetch youtube auto closed captions

Skill cmd-christopher/fetch-youtube-auto-closed-captions

Download YouTube auto-generated closed captions (VTT) with yt-dlp when a user provides a YouTube URL or video ID and wants auto-subs/transcripts; includes checking for yt-dlp and offering install guidance if missing.From its SKILL.md

Install

npx -y skills add cmd-christopher/fetch-youtube-auto-closed-captions

Assembled from the repository path, not quoted from the project. Check it against their README if it does not work.

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SKILL.md

1.7 KB, 352 tokens by cl100k_base, as published. Nobody here has run it

YouTube auto captions via yt-dlp

Use this skill to fetch auto-generated English captions from YouTube using yt-dlp.

Workflow

Accept a YouTube URL or video ID from the user.
Check if yt-dlp is available.
If missing, ask the user if they want help installing it and offer install commands.
Run the download command or the bundled script to write auto-subs in VTT and a readable transcript in TXT.

Preferred command

Use exactly this command when running manually:

yt-dlp \
  --skip-download \
  --write-auto-subs \
  --sub-lang en \
  --sub-format vtt \
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID

Bundled script

Use scripts/download_auto_captions.sh to handle URL or ID input and an optional output directory. It writes both .vtt and a cleaned .txt transcript (timestamps/tags stripped, common non-speech cues removed, merged into sentences):

bash scripts/download_auto_captions.sh <url-or-id> [output-dir]

Install guidance (ask first)

If yt-dlp is not installed, ask the user whether to install and then offer one of:

macOS (Homebrew): brew install yt-dlp
Python (pipx): pipx install yt-dlp
Python (pip): python3 -m pip install -U yt-dlp

Notes

Output files are written as .vtt subtitles and .txt transcripts in the chosen directory.
Auto-subs depend on what YouTube provides; some videos may not have auto-generated captions.

What ships with it: 1 file

2.8 KB alongside SKILL.md, 1 of them executable

scripts/

download_auto_captions.shruns2.8 KB

Gives 0 of the 12 instructions most social media skills give in 352 tokens

Counted across 489 of the 492 authors here whose files we hold, read 2026-08-07

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Respond to all comments on your postsin 21 of 489, across 9 files
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Ask user about HTML preview after logo generationin 12 of 489, across 3 files
Run the download script with a URLin 12 of 489, across 3 files
Implement exponential backoff for 429 responsesin 12 of 489, across 3 files
Write the hook firstin 12 of 489, across 7 files
Include a single clear call to actionin 12 of 489, across 9 files

Said here and by no other author read

run the download command or bundled script
write auto-subs in VTT and transcript in TXT
ask the user before installing yt-dlp

Grouped from the skills themselves: near-identical wordings counted once, and counted by distinct author, so one author publishing three of these counts once. Length counted with cl100k_base; the agent that loads this file may tokenize it differently.