YouTube Summaries — Claude Code Plugin

Slash commands for Claude Code that fetch YouTube transcripts, generate summaries, and let you search for exact quotes with timestamp links.

Commands

Command	Description
/summarize [url|id]	Summarize a video. Omit arg to reuse last video.
/transcript [url|id]	Full transcript with timestamps.
/ask <question>	Find where a topic was discussed + timestamp links.

All commands accept:

• Full YouTube URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID
• Short URL: https://youtu.be/VIDEO_ID
• Bare video ID: VIDEO_ID (11 characters)
• No argument: reuses the last video automatically

After fetching, each command asks whether you want output in the CLI or saved to a file in output/.

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Installation

1. Prerequisites

• Python 3.9+
• Node.js (for Claude Code CLI)
• Claude Code installed: npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code

2. Clone this repo

git clone <repo-url>
cd yt_summaries

3. Install Python dependencies

pip install youtube-transcript-api

Or with a virtual environment:

python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate       # macOS/Linux
.venv\Scripts\activate          # Windows
pip install youtube-transcript-api

4. Open in Claude Code

claude .

The .claude/commands/ directory is picked up automatically. The three slash commands are immediately available.

5. Verify

/summarize https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vitf8YaVXhc

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Output files

All saved output lands in output/:

File	Created by
output/summary_<id>.md	/summarize → file
output/transcript_<id>.txt	/transcript → file
output/.last_video	Updated after every command

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Direct script usage

yt_transcript.py can be run directly:

# Plain transcript
python yt_transcript.py "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID"

# With timestamps
python yt_transcript.py "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID" --timestamps

# Bare video ID
python yt_transcript.py VIDEO_ID --timestamps

# Save to file
python yt_transcript.py VIDEO_ID --timestamps > output/transcript.txt