youtube-archiver
Archive YouTube playlists into markdown notes with metadata, transcripts, AI summaries, and tags. Use when a user asks to import/sync YouTube playlists, archive Watch Later or Liked videos, enrich YouTube notes, batch process video notes, or automate recurring YouTube-to-markdown sync jobs with cron.
Install via CLI (Recommended)
clawhub install openclaw/skills/skills/benmillerat/youtube-archiverWhat This Skill Does
The youtube-archiver skill is a robust automation tool designed to bridge the gap between YouTube's streaming platform and your local knowledge base. It facilitates the seamless archival of YouTube playlists into organized markdown files. Beyond simple metadata extraction, the skill integrates with powerful AI models to generate intelligent summaries and automatic tagging, transforming raw video links into searchable, high-value notes. By supporting features like differential updates and lockfile management, it ensures your archive remains consistent without duplicate efforts.
Installation
To integrate this skill into your OpenClaw environment, use the following command in your terminal: clawhub install openclaw/skills/skills/benmillerat/youtube-archiver. Ensure that you have Python 3.7 or higher installed on your system along with the necessary yt-dlp dependency. For users managing private playlists like 'Liked' or 'Watch Later,' remember to configure browser cookies or specify a path to a cookies.txt file, especially on non-macOS environments where browser cookie extraction may encounter limitations. Running the first-run initialization script will guide you through directory configuration and AI provider setup.
Use Cases
This skill is ideal for researchers, students, and content creators who rely on YouTube as a primary information source. Use it to batch-process your 'Watch Later' list into structured markdown documents, automate the syncing of educational channel playlists for offline review, or create a 'second brain' index of long-form video content complete with AI-generated transcripts and key insights. It is particularly effective for users who want to apply cron-based automation to maintain a living, breathing archive of media content.
Example Prompts
- "OpenClaw, please sync my Liked Videos playlist into the ./YouTube-Archive folder and generate AI summaries for everything that hasn't been processed yet."
- "Can you set up a recurring task to check my Watch Later playlist for new videos every day at 11:00 and add them to my knowledge base?"
- "Archive all videos from the 'Machine Learning Tutorials' playlist, use Gemini to summarize the content, and apply auto-tags based on the video categories."
Tips & Limitations
The youtube-archiver is highly performant when used with idempotency in mind; it skips existing video IDs to save API tokens and processing time. Always verify your setup with the --dry-run flag before initiating large imports. Note that while it handles transcript and metadata retrieval effectively, complex video structures or restricted content may require manual cookies_file management. For high-volume archival, ensure your API provider has sufficient rate limits to handle batch processing requests.
Metadata
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Find the right skillPaste this into your clawhub.json to enable this plugin.
{
"plugins": {
"official-benmillerat-youtube-archiver": {
"enabled": true,
"auto_update": true
}
}
}Tags(AI)
Flags: network-access, file-write, file-read, external-api, code-execution