Captions

Extract closed captions from YouTube videos via

TranscriptAPI.com

.

Setup

If

$TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY

is not set, help the user create an account (100 free credits, no card):

Step 1 — Register:

Ask user for their email.

node

./scripts/tapi-auth.js register

--email

USER_EMAIL

→ OTP sent to email. Ask user:

"Check your email for a 6-digit verification code."

Step 2 — Verify:

Once user provides the OTP:

node

./scripts/tapi-auth.js verify

--token

TOKEN_FROM_STEP_1

--otp

CODE

API key saved to your shell profile and agent config. Ready to use.

Manual option:

transcriptapi.com/signup

→ Dashboard → API Keys.

GET /api/v2/youtube/transcript

curl

-s

"https://transcriptapi.com/api/v2/youtube/transcript\

?video_url=VIDEO_URL&format=json&include_timestamp=true&send_metadata=true"

\

-H

"Authorization: Bearer

$TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY

"

Param

Required

Default

Values

video_url

yes

—

YouTube URL or video ID

format

no

json

json

(structured),

text

(plain)

include_timestamp

no

true

true

,

false

send_metadata

no

false

true

,

false

Response

(

format=json

— best for accessibility/timing):

{

"video_id"

:

"dQw4w9WgXcQ"

,

"language"

:

"en"

,

"transcript"

:

[

{

"text"

:

"We're no strangers to love"

,

"start"

:

18.0

,

"duration"

:

3.5

}

,

{

"text"

:

"You know the rules and so do I"

,

"start"

:

21.5

,

"duration"

:

2.8

}

]

,

"metadata"

:

{

"title"

:

"..."

,

"author_name"

:

"..."

,

"thumbnail_url"

:

"..."

}

}

start

seconds from video start

duration

how long caption is displayed Response ( format=text — readable): { "video_id" : "dQw4w9WgXcQ" , "language" : "en" , "transcript" : "[00:00:18] We're no strangers to love\n[00:00:21] You know the rules..." } Tips Use format=json for sync'd captions (accessibility tools, timing analysis). Use format=text with include_timestamp=false for clean reading. Auto-generated captions are available for most videos; manual CC is higher quality. Errors Code Meaning Action 402 No credits transcriptapi.com/billing 404 No captions Video doesn't have CC enabled 408 Timeout Retry once after 2s 1 credit per request. Free tier: 100 credits, 300 req/min.