YouTube Summarize Skill for Claude Code

A Claude Code skill that extracts transcripts from YouTube videos and generates intelligent summaries. Summaries can be saved to an Obsidian vault and previewed in your browser.

What is a Claude Code Skill?

Skills are reusable capabilities you can add to Claude Code. They extend what Claude can do by providing specialized workflows, scripts, and context. Learn more:

• Claude Code Skills Documentation
• Creating Custom Skills

Tip: You can use the /skill-creator skill in Claude Code to help create or modify skills interactively!

Features

• Extract transcripts from any YouTube video (including Shorts)
• Support for 100+ languages
• Multiple output formats: plain text, timestamped, or JSON
• Generates summaries based on your needs (TLDR, key points, detailed explanation)
• Saves summaries to an Obsidian vault with proper frontmatter
• Opens a styled HTML preview in your browser

Installation

1. Clone this repository into your Claude Code skills directory:

git clone https://github.com/stets/nifty_claude_skills.git ~/.claude/skills/youtube-summarize

2. Set up the Python virtual environment and install dependencies:

cd ~/.claude/skills/youtube-summarize
python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install youtube-transcript-api

3. (Optional) Customize the Obsidian vault path in scripts/save_summary.py:

# Edit this line to point to your preferred location
VAULT_PATH = Path.home() / "Documents" / "YouTube-Summaries"

Usage

Once installed, simply share a YouTube URL with Claude Code and ask it to summarize:

• "Summarize this video: https://youtube.com/watch?v=..."
• "What are the key points from this video?"
• "Give me a TLDR of https://youtu.be/..."
• "Explain what this video is about"

Claude will automatically:

1. Extract the video transcript
2. Generate a summary based on your request
3. Save it to your Obsidian vault
4. Open a styled preview in your browser

Customization

Obsidian Vault Location

Edit scripts/save_summary.py and change the VAULT_PATH variable to your preferred directory:

VAULT_PATH = Path.home() / "path" / "to" / "your" / "vault"

Disable Features

When invoking the save script, you can disable features:

• --no-save: Skip saving to Obsidian vault
• --no-preview: Skip opening browser preview

Supported URL Formats

• youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID
• youtu.be/VIDEO_ID
• youtube.com/shorts/VIDEO_ID
• youtube.com/embed/VIDEO_ID
• Direct video IDs

Error Handling

Error	Cause	Solution
TranscriptsDisabled	Video has no captions	Cannot extract - inform user
NoTranscriptFound	No transcript in requested language	Try without specifying language
VideoUnavailable	Private/deleted video	Video cannot be accessed

Creating Your Own Skills

Want to create your own Claude Code skills? Use the Skill Creator skill:

/skill-creator

This will guide you through creating effective skills that extend Claude's capabilities.

License

MIT