Youtube

description: Extract transcript, metadata, and top comments from a YouTube video - summarized via Grok and saved to vault

category: research

triggers_en: ["summarize youtube", "youtube transcript", "extract video", "youtube to vault"]

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

1. Resolve the YouTube URL or video ID from the user's argument. Accept any of: full URL (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=...), https://youtu.be/..., https://www.youtube.com/shorts/..., or just the 11-character video ID. If no input given, ask: "Which YouTube video?"

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

   uv run -m scripts.research.youtube_extract "<url-or-id>"

1. The script:

• Extracts the transcript via youtube-transcript-api (free, no API key).
• If YOUTUBE_API_KEY is set, also fetches title, channel, view/like counts, top comments. Otherwise skips metadata silently.
• Sends the transcript (and optional comments) to Grok for AI-first summarization.
• Returns: TL;DR, Key Points, Notable Quotes, Themes & Topics, Comment Sentiment, 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/YouTube/YYYY-MM-DD — <video-title-slug>.md. Frontmatter includes video ID, channel, view counts, etc. for future Dataview queries.

1. Plain English triggers: "summarize this YouTube video", "what's in this video", "extract this YouTube link", "transcribe this video", or just pasting a YouTube URL with a question about content.

1. If the video has no captions (transcript unavailable) AND no metadata (no API key), the script will fail with a clear message - surface it. Suggest the user picks a different video or provides metadata manually.

1. If the user asks to research something mentioned in the "Worth Following Up On" section, route that to /research [topic].

AI-first rule: Every note created or updated by this command MUST follow references/ai-first-rules.md - ## 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.