akrindev/youtube-downloader

YouTube Downloader

This skill enables AI agents to download videos from YouTube URLs for further processing, editing, or transcription.

When to Use

• User wants to download a YouTube video
• User provides a YouTube URL that needs to be processed
• User wants to extract audio from a YouTube video
• User wants to download a YouTube playlist

Setup

Ensure yt-dlp is installed:

pip install yt-dlp

Available Scripts

scripts/download.py

Download a video from YouTube URL.

Usage:

python skills/youtube-downloader/scripts/download.py <url> [options]

Options:

• --output, -o: Output path (default: ./downloads/%(title)s.%(ext)s)
• --format, -f: Video format (default: best[ext=mp4])
• --audio-only: Extract audio only
• --audio-format: Audio format when using --audio-only (default: mp3)
• --quality: Quality preset (best, 1080, 720, 480, 360)
• --playlist: Download entire playlist
• --subtitle: Download subtitles
• --write-description: Write video description
• --write-info-json: Write video metadata as JSON

Examples:

Download video in best quality:

python skills/youtube-downloader/scripts/download.py "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID"

Download with custom output path:

python skills/youtube-downloader/scripts/download.py "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID" --output "./my_video.mp4"

Extract audio only:

python skills/youtube-downloader/scripts/download.py "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID" --audio-only --audio-format wav

Download 720p video:

python skills/youtube-downloader/scripts/download.py "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID" --quality 720

Download with subtitles:

python skills/youtube-downloader/scripts/download.py "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID" --subtitle --write-info-json

scripts/download_playlist.py

Download entire YouTube playlist.

Usage:

python skills/youtube-downloader/scripts/download_playlist.py <playlist_url> [options]

Options:

• --output, -o: Output directory (default: ./downloads/%(playlist_title)s/%(title)s.%(ext)s)
• --start: Start downloading from this video number
• --end: End downloading at this video number
• --format: Video format
• All other options from download.py

Example:

python skills/youtube-downloader/scripts/download_playlist.py "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAYLIST_ID"

Output

Video Download

Returns a JSON with download information:

{
  "success": true,
  "video_path": "/path/to/video.mp4",
  "title": "Video Title",
  "duration": 1234.5,
  "uploader": "Channel Name",
  "upload_date": "20240101",
  "view_count": 1000000,
  "thumbnail": "/path/to/thumbnail.jpg"
}

Audio Download

Returns:

{
  "success": true,
  "audio_path": "/path/to/audio.mp3",
  "title": "Video Title",
  "duration": 1234.5
}

Quality Presets

| Preset | Resolution | Description | |---------|-------------|-------------| | best | Best available | Highest quality | | 1080 | 1920x1080 | Full HD | | 720 | 1280x720 | HD | | 480 | 854x480 | SD | | 360 | 640x360 | Low quality |

Integration with Other Skills

After downloading, you can use these skills:

• video-transcriber: Transcribe the downloaded video
• scene-detector: Detect scene changes
• portrait-resizer: Convert to 9:16 portrait format
• autocut-shorts: Full workflow for creating short clips

Common Workflow

1. User provides YouTube URL
2. Download video using this skill
3. Transcribe using video-transcriber
4. Create short clips using autocut-shorts

Error Handling

• Network errors: Retry up to 3 times
• Invalid URL: Return clear error message
• Video not available: Return video status
• Age-restricted: May require authentication

Tips

• Use --audio-only when you only need the transcript (saves bandwidth)
• Use --write-info-json to get video metadata for analysis
• For long videos, consider downloading in segments
• Use --subtitle if available video has captions

References

• yt-dlp documentation: https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp
• YouTube URL formats: Regular, Short, Playlist, Embed