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/youtube-search

@19d384a
by Zero Point Studiozeropointrepo/youtube-skills987 stars
110

Use when the user wants to find YouTube content on any topic: searching for videos or channels, finding creators who cover a subject, discovering tutorials, talks, or expert discussions, or looking up a channel by name or handle. Also use proactively when the user wants to research a topic and YouTube is a good source. Not for account management or written-source-only research.

Ask your Agent

Use this Skill: https://skilld.dev/gh/zeropointrepo/youtube-skills/youtube-search

This session only. Nothing lands on disk.

SKILL.md

≈99 tokens always: the name and description. ≈1.6k when used: this file. ≈2.2k more on demand in 2 files.

YouTube Search

Search YouTube and fetch transcripts via TranscriptAPI.com.

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.

GET /api/v2/youtube/search — 1 credit/page

Search YouTube globally for videos, channels, playlists, or movies.

GET https://transcriptapi.com/api/v2/youtube/search?q=QUERY&type=video&limit=20
Authorization: Bearer $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY
User-Agent: YourAgent/1.0
Param Required Default Validation
q conditional — 1-200 chars (trimmed), first page
type no video video, channel, playlist, movie (first page)
sort no relevance relevance or views (first page)
upload_date no — hour, today, week, month, year — videos, first page
duration no — short (<4m), medium (4-20m), long (>20m) — videos, first page
features no — comma-separated: hd, subtitles, cc, live, 4k, hdr, etc.
limit no 20 1-50
continuation conditional — token from a previous response (subsequent pages)

Provide exactly one of q (first page) or continuation (next pages) — the token already encodes the filters. sort/upload_date/duration/features apply to the first page only.

Find recent, most-viewed videos:

GET https://transcriptapi.com/api/v2/youtube/search?q=innovation&sort=views&duration=long&upload_date=month
Authorization: Bearer $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY
User-Agent: YourAgent/1.0

Search for playlists on a topic:

GET https://transcriptapi.com/api/v2/youtube/search?q=react+tutorial&type=playlist
Authorization: Bearer $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY
User-Agent: YourAgent/1.0

Video search response:

{
  "results": [
    {
      "type": "video",
      "videoId": "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
      "title": "Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up",
      "channelId": "UCuAXFkgsw1L7xaCfnd5JJOw",
      "channelTitle": "Rick Astley",
      "channelHandle": "@RickAstley",
      "channelVerified": true,
      "lengthText": "3:33",
      "viewCountText": "1.5B views",
      "publishedTimeText": "14 years ago",
      "hasCaptions": true,
      "thumbnails": [{ "url": "...", "width": 120, "height": 90 }]
    }
  ],
  "result_count": 20
}

Channel search response (type=channel):

{
  "results": [{
    "type": "channel",
    "channelId": "UCuAXFkgsw1L7xaCfnd5JJOw",
    "title": "Rick Astley",
    "handle": "@RickAstley",
    "url": "https://www.youtube.com/@RickAstley",
    "description": "Official channel...",
    "subscriberCount": "4.2M subscribers",
    "verified": true,
    "rssUrl": "https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UC...",
    "thumbnails": [...]
  }],
  "result_count": 5
}

GET /api/v2/youtube/channel/search — 1 credit

Search videos within a specific channel. Accepts channel — an @handle, channel URL, or UC... ID.

GET https://transcriptapi.com/api/v2/youtube/channel/search?channel=@TED&q=climate+change&limit=30
Authorization: Bearer $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY
User-Agent: YourAgent/1.0
Param Required Validation
channel yes @handle, channel URL, or UC... ID
q yes 1-200 chars
limit no 1-50 (default 30)

Returns up to ~30 results (YouTube limit). Same video response shape as global search.

GET /api/v2/youtube/channel/resolve — FREE

Convert @handle to channel ID:

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

Workflow: Search → Transcript

# 1. Search for videos
GET https://transcriptapi.com/api/v2/youtube/search?q=python+web+scraping&type=video&limit=5
Authorization: Bearer $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY
User-Agent: YourAgent/1.0

# 2. Get transcript from result
GET https://transcriptapi.com/api/v2/youtube/transcript?video_url=VIDEO_ID&format=text&include_timestamp=true&send_metadata=true
Authorization: Bearer $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY
User-Agent: YourAgent/1.0

Errors

Code Meaning Action
401 Bad API key Check key
402 No credits transcriptapi.com/billing
403/1010 Cloudflare block Add or fix User-Agent header
404 Not found Resource doesn't exist
408 Timeout Retry once
422 Invalid param Check param format

Free tier: 100 credits, 300 req/min.

Copy-paste examples

Every request in this file as a ready-to-run one-liner: references/curl-examples.md

Source: SKILL.md on GitHub

Third-party checks

1 alert10d5 checks · Risk MEDIUM
  • Gen Agent Trust Hub10d

    The skill provides YouTube search and transcript fetching via an external API. It includes instructions to persist credentials in shell profiles and a specific workflow designed to bypass platform-level secret redaction by using temporary files for sensitive tokens.

  • Socket10d

    1 alert: gptMalware

  • Snyk10d

    Risk: MEDIUM · 1 issue

  • Runlayer7mo

    2/2 files flagged

  • ZeroLeaks5mo

    Score: 93/100 · 2 sections analyzed

Provenance

Signed by skilld at 19d384a. This ties the file your Agent reads to that commit on GitHub. It does not review the instructions.

Last checked against GitHub last week.

Activeupdated 2 weeks ago

Capability

version
1.6.0
user-invocable
true
Other metadata
compatibility
Requires internet access to reach transcriptapi.com. No additional runtimes or dependencies needed.
required_environment_variables
[
  {
    "name": "TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY",
    "prompt": "Your TranscriptAPI key (starts with sk_)",
    "help": "Free account at https://transcriptapi.com — 100 credits, no card required. Or let the agent create one for you.",
    "required_for": "all API requests"
  }
]
metadata
{
  "openclaw": {
    "emoji": "▶️",
    "requires": {
      "env": [
        "TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY"
      ]
    },
    "primaryEnv": "TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY",
    "homepage": "https://transcriptapi.com"
  },
  "hermes": {
    "tags": [
      "youtube",
      "search",
      "video",
      "channels",
      "discovery",
      "research"
    ],
    "category": "media"
  }
}

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