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:

bash

pip install yt-dlp

Available Scripts

`scripts/download.py`

Download a video from YouTube URL.

Usage:

bash

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:

bash

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

Download with custom output path:

bash

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

Extract audio only:

bash

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

Download 720p video:

bash

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

Download with subtitles:

bash

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:

bash

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:

bash

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:

json

{
  "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:

json

{
  "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

•User provides YouTube URL
•Download video using this skill
•Transcribe using video-transcriber
•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