Use case, YouTube transcript

YouTube transcript API for your agent. One call per video.

Send a YouTube video link. Read timestamped transcript lines and plain text version back. Your agent picks the provider, and you pay per call.

Give this to your agent
set up looot - https://looot.ai/skill.md

The job

What the YouTube transcript API gives your agent

A transcript turns a video into text your agent can read, search and quote. You send a video link, and the provider returns the caption lines with their start times. That covers research across talks, repurposing one video into posts, and building a text archive of a channel.

Four providers return captions, and they agree on the basics. They differ on what shape the text comes in and which languages you can choose. One returns a timestamped array and a plain-text version in the same call. Another lets you pick between automatic and manual captions and lists the languages a video has.

You give

a YouTube video link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

You get

  • Timestamped transcript lines
  • Plain text version
  • Start and end times
  • Caption language

Sample calls

The request and what comes back

Each run is one POST to /v1/runs with an endpoint id and an input. These are illustrative calls with generic values. The run's result holds the provider's own fields.

Request
{"endpointId":"scrapecreators-youtube-video-transcript","input":{"url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ","language":"en"},"wait":30}
ResponseSample output
// POST /v1/runs, then read run.status and run.result
// result: returns a timestamped transcript array and a plain-text version, with a language code and a cache option

The prompt

Copy one prompt, give it to your agent.

Edit the names and numbers, paste it, and the agent runs the job and shows the cost.

  • One run is one video.
  • 1 steps across 4 providers.
  • Runs on demand, whenever you ask.
Prompt: YouTube transcript API
Use looot to get the transcript of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ in English, return it with timestamps, and add a three line summary. 1. Set up https://looot.ai/skill.md. 2. Search the catalog for each step and check its price before you call. 3. Run the cheapest endpoint that fits. 4. Show the results as a table and the total cost.

Give this to your agent
Setup command
set up looot - https://looot.ai/skill.md

Before you start

Settle these before the first run

  • Check that the video has captions. If YouTube exposes no caption track, the transcript fields come back empty, and you are not billed for a call that fails at the provider.
  • Ask for a language. If the transcript is not available in the language you name, one provider returns null instead of the nearest match.
  • Long videos work. One provider says there is no two-minute limit on YouTube, and that podcasts work when public captions exist.

FAQ

Questions people ask

Send the video link to a transcript endpoint. Your agent gets back the caption lines with start times and a plain-text version. For a list of videos, it makes one call per link.

For agents
use case
YouTube transcript API
run
video
schedule
on demand
step
Fetch the transcript: scrapecreators anysite dataforseo searchapi-io
setup
https://looot.ai/skill.md
llms.txt
https://looot.ai/llms.txt
updated
2026-10-04
markdown /use-cases/youtube-transcript-api.md

Try YouTube transcript with your own agent.

Start your workspace, top up, and paste the prompt into the agent you already use.

Start your workspace See agent recipes