Transcript

Fetch video transcripts via TranscriptAPI.com.

Setup

If $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY is not set, read references/auth-setup.md and follow the instructions there to get and store the key.

Required Headers

Every request needs two headers:

• Authorization: Bearer $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY
• User-Agent: your agent's name and version if known (e.g. HermesAgent/0.11.0, ClaudeCode/1.0). Version is optional — agent name alone is fine. Do not omit this header or send a bare default — Cloudflare will return a 403 (error code 1010) and block the request.

GET /api/v2/youtube/transcript

bash
curl -s "https://transcriptapi.com/api/v2/youtube/transcript\
?video_url=VIDEO_URL&format=text&include_timestamp=true&send_metadata=true" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY" \
  -H "User-Agent: YourAgent/1.0"

| Param | Required | Default | Values | | ------------------- | -------- | ------- | ------------------------------- | | video_url | yes | — | YouTube URL or 11-char video ID | | format | no | json | json, text | | include_timestamp | no | true | true, false | | send_metadata | no | false | true, false |

Accepts: full URLs (youtube.com/watch?v=ID), short URLs (youtu.be/ID), shorts (youtube.com/shorts/ID), or bare video IDs.

Default: Always use format=text&include_timestamp=true&send_metadata=true unless user specifies otherwise.

Response (format=json):

json
{
  "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": "Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up",
    "author_name": "Rick Astley",
    "author_url": "https://www.youtube.com/@RickAstley",
    "thumbnail_url": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/dQw4w9WgXcQ/maxresdefault.jpg"
  }
}

Response (format=text):

json
{
  "video_id": "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "language": "en",
  "transcript": "[00:00:18] We're no strangers to love\n[00:00:21] You know the rules...",
  "metadata": {...}
}

Errors

| Code | Meaning | Action | | -------- | ---------------- | ---------------------------------------------- | | 401 | Bad API key | Check key or re-setup | | 402 | No credits | Top up at transcriptapi.com/billing | | 403/1010 | Cloudflare block | Add or fix User-Agent header | | 404 | No transcript | Video may not have captions enabled | | 408 | Timeout | Retry once after 2s | | 429 | Rate limited | Wait and retry |

Tips

• For long videos, summarize key points first, offer full transcript on request.
• Use format=json when you need precise timestamps for quoting specific moments.
• Use include_timestamp=false for clean text suitable for translation or analysis.
• 1 credit per successful request. Errors don't cost credits.
• Free tier: 100 credits, 300 req/min.