YouTube skills for AI agents
Agent skills for YouTube transcripts, search, channels and playlists, powered
by YTAPI. They work with Claude Code, Codex, Cursor,
OpenClaw, Hermes Agent and any agent that reads Agent Skills.
Plain HTTPS calls with curl, nothing else to install. They also work where
fetching YouTube directly fails: on servers and cloud agents, tools like
yt-dlp often get HTTP 429, a bot check or an IP block.
Install
Claude plugin: the YTAPI MCP server plus skills for video summaries,
channel digests, topic research and channel analysis. In Claude Code:
/plugin marketplace add ytapi/youtube-skills
/plugin install ytapi@ytapi
The first time Claude uses a YTAPI tool, run /mcp and sign in to your YTAPI
account (or create one: 200 free credits, no card). No API key needed. The
plugin lives in plugins/ytapi.
Cursor: add the YTAPI MCP server in Cursor Settings → MCP, or put this in
~/.cursor/mcp.json (or .cursor/mcp.json in a project):
{
"mcpServers": {
"ytapi": { "url": "https://api.ytapi.dev/mcp" }
}
}
Cursor asks you to sign in to your YTAPI account the first time. This repo is
also a Cursor plugin: .cursor-plugin/plugin.json
and .mcp.json at the root, plus the skills below.
Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Cline and others (skills.sh):
npx skills add ytapi/youtube-skills
One skill only:
npx skills add ytapi/youtube-skills --skill ytapi-youtube-transcript
OpenClaw (ClawHub):
npx clawhub@latest install ytapi
Hermes Agent:
hermes skills install skills-sh/ytapi/youtube-skills/skills/ytapi
Not a developer? Paste this to your agent:
Install the YouTube skill from https://github.com/ytapi/youtube-skills and
set up my YTAPI key.
Skills
| Skill | What it does |
|---|
ytapi | Everything below in one skill: transcripts, video details, comments, most replayed moments, search, channels, playlists, batches |
ytapi-youtube-transcript | Transcripts and subtitles: text, Markdown, timestamped JSON, SRT, VTT, any language |
ytapi-youtube-search | Search videos, channels, playlists and Shorts, then read the results |
ytapi-youtube-channels | Channel profiles, latest uploads, all videos, playlists |
ytapi-youtube-summarize | Summaries and notes of a video or a channel's new uploads, with timestamped links |
ytapi-youtube-channel-analysis | Competitor research: breakouts, how a channel grew, why a video went viral, and a playbook skill to reuse |
Install ytapi if you are unsure.
API key
The skills read the key from YTAPI_API_KEY. If it is not set, the agent
offers to create a free account for you: you give it your email address and
the 6-digit code we send you, and it stores the key. No browser and no card.
Or create a key yourself at ytapi.dev.
New accounts get 200 free credits. One successful request uses one credit
(video basic info and search suggestions are free); failed requests are free.
Until you buy a credit pack, a key can make 1 request per second and 100 per
day. Packs start at $9 for 2,000 credits and never expire:
pricing.
Examples
- "Summarize this video: https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ"
- "Get the Spanish subtitles of this talk as an SRT file."
- "Find this week's most-viewed videos about Rust async and tell me what they cover."
- "What has @mkbhd uploaded lately? Give me a two-line summary of each."
- "List every video in this playlist with its length."
- "Why did @channel's latest video do so well? Turn what works into a playbook for my channel."
Links
Contributing
Each skill carries a copy of shared/auth-setup.md in its references/
folder, because skills are installed one at a time. Edit the file in
shared/, then run ./scripts/sync-references.sh.
The Claude plugin in plugins/ytapi has its own skills, which use the MCP
tools and never handle an API key. When you change them, bump version in
plugins/ytapi/.claude-plugin/plugin.json: Claude Code keeps plugin users on
the version listed there.
Licensed MIT-0.
