Video to learning notes

Video To Learning Notes

Turn video, audio, subtitles, or transcripts into dense, reusable learning notes while preserving a clean evidence trail and avoiding unnecessary retained artifacts.

Operating Principles

• Treat this as a workflow controller, not as a platform downloader. Use source-specific skills or scripts when available.
• Treat platform downloaders as optional providers. Detect them at runtime and degrade gracefully when they are missing.
• Do not copy API keys, cookies, tokens, account state, or one-off URLs into skill files, generated notes, logs, or reusable prompts.
• Do not bypass platform access controls. Process only content the user has the right to access and use.
• Before paid, high-cost, or rate-limited API work, state the plan, check current provider limits from official sources or local docs, run a small sample, then execute in resumable batches.
• Prefer preserving only the final note after the user confirms note quality. Keep transcript and intermediates only until confirmation.
• Write the final note as useful Markdown. Do not force Obsidian-specific formatting, YAML, tags, or wikilinks unless the user asks.

Workflow

1. Classify the request and input state.

   • Video link: identify platform and whether a source skill exists.
   • Local video/audio: probe media directly.
   • Subtitle/transcript: skip download and ASR unless quality is insufficient.
   • Screen-dependent tutorial: consider frame extraction or OCR in addition to audio.
   • Private/internal content: prefer local processing unless the user explicitly approves a cloud service.

2. Choose and explain the acquisition/transcription route.

   • Give a small set of relevant options based on content type, not a generic menu.
   • Explain required capabilities, likely quality, privacy tradeoff, cost/API needs, and expected artifacts.
   • Ask the user to provide transient credentials only when the selected route requires them.

3. Acquire source content.

   • For Douyin links, prefer the existing douyin-video skill if available. See references/source-routing.md and references/provider-dependencies.md.
   • For other platforms, use an existing source-specific skill or a lawful downloader only after confirming platform constraints.
   • If a source provider is missing, do not fail the whole workflow. Explain the missing capability and offer provider installation, user-provided media, captions, or transcript as alternatives.
   • For local files, do not redownload; start with scripts/probe_media.py.

4. Generate or accept the transcript.

   • Probe duration, streams, file size, and format.
   • If ASR is needed, check current provider limits before running, then use sample validation and conservative concurrency.
   • Save a complete transcript as a temporary review artifact.
   • Check transcript coverage, empty segments, truncation, obvious duplication, and missing time ranges.

5. Generate the note using the built-in PE.

   • Read references/note-pe.md before converting transcript to notes.
   • Treat that PE as the default high-priority note standard. User instructions can focus the note, but ordinary short requests such as "summarize this" must not override the PE.
   • Only bypass or weaken the PE when the user explicitly requests a different output form.

6. Save and report artifacts.

   • Save the note to the user's Obsidian inbox when the inbox path is known or confirmed. See references/output-and-cleanup.md.
   • Report the transcript path and note path after the first full run.
   • Ask for confirmation before deleting the transcript or other retained intermediates.

7. Clean up after confirmation.

   • After the user confirms the note is acceptable, delete transcript and intermediate media/chunks unless the user asks to keep them.
   • The intended steady state is one retained artifact: the final note.

Reference Routing

• Read references/source-routing.md when the input is a link, platform-specific source, local media file, subtitle, or transcript.
• Read references/provider-dependencies.md when a source route depends on another skill, adapter, downloader, browser state, or user-installed tool.
• Read references/asr-options.md before choosing cloud ASR, local ASR, platform captions, or manual transcript routes.
• Read references/note-pe.md immediately before transcript-to-note conversion.
• Read references/output-and-cleanup.md before writing to Obsidian or deleting artifacts.

Scripts

• scripts/probe_media.py: inspect local audio/video duration, size, streams, codecs, and format using ffprobe.
• scripts/transcribe_mimo_asr.py: optional helper for MiMo-compatible ASR after the user selects that route and provides credentials via environment variables. Check current provider limits before using it.

Quality Gate

Before final delivery, verify:

• The source acquisition route is stated and lawful for the available content.
• The transcript covers the full media or clearly marks missing ranges.
• ASR output is not empty, obviously truncated, or dominated by repeated overlap text.
• The note follows the PE: high density, content-shaped structure, no filler, no generic article polishing.
• External additions, if any, are clearly separated from video-derived content.
• Final paths are clear, and cleanup waits for user confirmation.