YouTube Full

Complete YouTube toolkit via TranscriptAPI.com. Everything in one skill.

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.

Transcript — 1 credit

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

Param	Required	Default	Values
video_url	yes	—	YouTube URL or 11-char video ID
format	no	json	json, text
include_timestamp	no	true	true, false
send_metadata	no	false	true, false

Response (format=json):

{
  "video_id": "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "language": "en",
  "transcript": [{ "text": "...", "start": 18.0, "duration": 3.5 }],
  "metadata": { "title": "...", "author_name": "...", "author_url": "..." }
}

Video Info & Metadata

# Free — languages available for the transcript endpoint
GET https://transcriptapi.com/api/v2/youtube/info?video_url=VIDEO_URL
Authorization: Bearer $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY
User-Agent: YourAgent/1.0

# 1 credit — rich metadata (views, likes, description, duration, tags)
GET https://transcriptapi.com/api/v2/youtube/video/metadata?video_url=VIDEO_URL&include=details,related
Authorization: Bearer $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY
User-Agent: YourAgent/1.0

include on video/metadata accepts details and/or related. Naming: /video/metadata was previously /video/info — the old path still works but is deprecated.

Search — 1 credit/page

# Videos
GET https://transcriptapi.com/api/v2/youtube/search?q=QUERY&type=video&limit=20
Authorization: Bearer $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY
User-Agent: YourAgent/1.0

# Channels, playlists, or movies
GET https://transcriptapi.com/api/v2/youtube/search?q=QUERY&type=channel&limit=10
Authorization: Bearer $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY
User-Agent: YourAgent/1.0

Param	Required	Default	Validation
q	yes	—	1-200 chars
type	no	video	video, channel, playlist, movie
sort	no	relevance	relevance, views (first page only)
upload_date	no	—	hour, today, week, month, year (videos, first page)
duration	no	—	short, medium, long (videos, first page)
features	no	—	e.g. hd,subtitles,cc (first page)
limit	no	20	1-50

Channels

All channel endpoints accept channel — an @handle, channel URL, or UC... channel ID. No need to resolve first.

Resolve handle — FREE

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

Response: {"channel_id": "UC...", "resolved_from": "@TED"}

Latest 15 videos — FREE

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

Returns exact viewCount and ISO published timestamps.

Channel feed (videos/shorts/streams) — 1 credit/page

# First page (100 items, tab defaults to "videos")
GET https://transcriptapi.com/api/v2/youtube/channel/videos?channel=@NASA&tab=videos
Authorization: Bearer $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY
User-Agent: YourAgent/1.0

# Most-viewed first (channel Videos tab, ~30 items)
GET https://transcriptapi.com/api/v2/youtube/channel/videos?channel=@NASA&sort=popular
Authorization: Bearer $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY
User-Agent: YourAgent/1.0

# Next pages (repeat the same tab AND sort)
GET https://transcriptapi.com/api/v2/youtube/channel/videos?continuation=TOKEN&sort=popular
Authorization: Bearer $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY
User-Agent: YourAgent/1.0

Provide exactly one of channel or continuation. tab is videos (default), shorts, or streams. Response includes continuation_token and has_more.

Sorting. Add sort=latest, popular, or oldest to channel/videos to get a channel's videos in the order you want, for example its most-popular uploads first. A sorted page returns about 30 videos (an unsorted page returns about 100), and every page costs the same 1 credit.

When paging, send the same sort on each request.

Item fields. Every item carries members_only, true only when YouTube badges it "Members only", and those items have no viewCountText. tab=streams items carry lengthText and publishedTimeText (for example Streamed 2 years ago); tab=shorts returns null for both, because YouTube's Shorts grid publishes neither. On the channel-tab feeds (tab=videos with sort, tab=shorts, tab=streams) channelId, channelTitle, channelHandle and index are null.

Search within channel — 1 credit

GET https://transcriptapi.com/api/v2/youtube/channel/search?channel=@TED&q=QUERY&limit=30
Authorization: Bearer $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY
User-Agent: YourAgent/1.0

Channel profile — 1 credit

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

Returns title, handle, verified flag, subscriber/video counts, description, tags, thumbnails, banners, and availableTabs.

Channel playlists — 1 credit/page

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

Returns each playlist's playlistId, title, url, videoCountText — feed a playlistId into the Playlists endpoint below.

Channel community posts — 1 credit/page

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

Channel curated sections — 1 credit

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

tab is featured (default, Home page), podcasts, or releases.

Playlists — 1 credit/page

Accepts playlist — a YouTube playlist URL or playlist ID.

# First page
GET https://transcriptapi.com/api/v2/youtube/playlist/videos?playlist=PL_ID
Authorization: Bearer $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY
User-Agent: YourAgent/1.0

# Next pages
GET https://transcriptapi.com/api/v2/youtube/playlist/videos?continuation=TOKEN
Authorization: Bearer $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY
User-Agent: YourAgent/1.0

Valid ID prefixes: PL, UU, LL, FL, OL. Response includes playlist_info, results, continuation_token, has_more.

Credit Costs

Endpoint	Cost
transcript	1
info	free
video/metadata	1
search	1/page
channel/resolve	free
channel/info	1
channel/latest	free
channel/videos	1/page
channel/search	1
channel/playlists	1/page
channel/posts	1/page
channel/sections	1
playlist/videos	1/page

Validation Rules

Field	Rule
channel	@handle, channel URL, or UC... ID
playlist	Playlist URL or ID (PL/UU/LL/FL/OL prefix)
q	1-200 chars
type (search)	video (default), channel, playlist, movie
tab (channel/videos)	videos (default), shorts, streams
sort (channel/videos)	latest, popular, oldest (omit for the uploads feed)
tab (channel/sections)	featured (default), podcasts, releases
include (video/metadata)	details, related (comma-separated)
limit	1-50

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 or no captions
408	Timeout	Retry once after 2s
422	Validation error	Check param format
429	Rate limited	Wait, respect Retry-After

Typical Workflows

Research workflow: search → pick videos → fetch transcripts

# 1. Search
GET https://transcriptapi.com/api/v2/youtube/search?q=machine+learning+explained&limit=5
Authorization: Bearer $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY
User-Agent: YourAgent/1.0

# 2. Transcript
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

Channel monitoring: latest (free) → transcript

# 1. Latest uploads (free — pass @handle directly)
GET https://transcriptapi.com/api/v2/youtube/channel/latest?channel=@TED
Authorization: Bearer $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY
User-Agent: YourAgent/1.0

# 2. Transcript of latest
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

Free tier: 100 credits, 300 req/min. Starter ($5/mo): 1,000 credits.

Copy-paste examples

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