Podcast

description: Extract metadata, transcript, and summary from a podcast episode, saved as an AI-first note in the vault

category: research

triggers_en: ["summarize this podcast", "podcast episode summary", "extract podcast", "what's in this episode"]

Use the obsidian-second-brain skill. Execute /podcast [url]:

1. Resolve the podcast URL from the user's argument. Accept any of:

• Apple Podcasts episode URL (https://podcasts.apple.com/.../id<show>?i=<episode>)
• Direct RSS feed URL (uses the latest episode unless ?episode=<guid> selector is appended)
• Direct RSS feed URL with ?episode=<guid-fragment-or-link-fragment> selector

If no input given, ask: "Which podcast episode? Paste the Apple Podcasts link or RSS feed URL." Spotify URLs are not supported (DRM blocks audio + transcript access). Surface this clearly if pasted.

1. Run the Python command from the repo root (~/Projects/personal/obsidian-second-brain/):

   uv run -m scripts.research.podcast_extract "<url>"

1. The script:

• Resolves Apple Podcasts URLs to RSS via the free iTunes Lookup API (no key needed).
• Parses the RSS feed, extracts episode metadata (title, show, host, published, duration, audio URL, show notes).
• Tries to obtain a transcript in this order:

1. **<podcast:transcript> tag** in the RSS feed (free, fast, high fidelity).

2. Whisper API, only if OPENAI_API_KEY is set. Downloads audio (<=25 MB OpenAI per-file limit), transcribes via whisper-1. Approximate cost: $0.006/min.

3. Show-notes-only fallback. If no transcript path works, summarizes from RSS show notes alone. Quality drops; Notable Quotes will be empty.

• Sends transcript-or-shownotes to Grok for AI-first summarization.
• Returns: TL;DR, Key Points, Notable Quotes, Themes & Topics, Guests & People Mentioned, Worth Following Up On.

1. Show the script output verbatim to the user.

1. Default save behavior: saves automatically. AI-first note written to Research/Podcasts/YYYY-MM-DD — <episode-title-slug>.md (em-dash separator, matches the existing /youtube and /research filename pattern). Frontmatter includes show, host, episode-title, episode-url, feed-url, guid, published, duration, transcript-source (one of rss-transcript-tag / whisper-api / show-notes), and tags.

1. Plain English triggers: "summarize this podcast", "what's in this episode", "transcribe this podcast", or just pasting an Apple Podcasts URL with a question about content.

1. If the podcast publishes neither a transcript tag nor usable show notes AND there's no OPENAI_API_KEY, the script will fail with a clear message. Surface it. Suggest the user either picks a podcast that publishes transcripts, or sets OPENAI_API_KEY for Whisper transcription.

1. If the user asks to research someone or something mentioned in the "Worth Following Up On" or "Guests & People Mentioned" section, route that to /research [topic] (or /obsidian-person if it's a vault-worthy contact).

AI-first rule: Every note created or updated by this command MUST follow references/ai-first-rules.md. That means: ## For future Claude preamble, rich frontmatter (type, date, tags, ai-first: true, plus type-specific fields), recency markers per external claim, mandatory [[wikilinks]] for every person/project/concept referenced, sources preserved verbatim with URLs inline, and confidence levels where applicable. The vault is for future-Claude retrieval, not human reading.

Anti-fabrication: Search exhaustively before claiming any note, person, or file is absent - false absence is the most common failure mode - and never invent facts, entities, or dates (mark unknowns as TBD). See the anti-fabrication and search-completeness hard rules in references/ai-first-rules.md.