youtube-video-api-skill

What This Skill Does

The YouTube Video API Skill for OpenClaw is a specialized browser automation tool designed to bridge the gap between complex YouTube web interfaces and structured data. It leverages the BrowserAct API to perform reliable, large-scale extraction of YouTube channel content without the need for manual scraping, complex proxy management, or solving CAPTCHAs. Whether you need the latest uploads, a list of a channel's most popular videos, or historical data from a creator's earliest archives, this skill provides a stable pipeline to fetch video titles, view counts, engagement metrics, and metadata directly into your workflow. By bypassing traditional AI-driven browser crawling, it significantly reduces token consumption and operational costs, providing faster and more accurate results for data-heavy tasks.

Installation

You can install this skill directly via the OpenClaw CLI using the following command:

clawhub install openclaw/skills/skills/ccmagia2-gif/youtube-video-api-skill

Ensure that you have set the BROWSERACT_API_KEY environment variable in your OpenClaw configuration. If the key is missing, the skill will prompt you to visit the BrowserAct Console to generate one before allowing execution.

Use Cases

This skill is indispensable for professionals who require consistent YouTube data without the overhead of maintaining scraping infrastructure. Key use cases include:

• Competitor Analysis: Tracking the posting cadence and performance metrics of rival channels.
• Content Strategy: Analyzing successful content by grouping data from popular videos to identify recurring themes.
• Archival Work: Extracting metadata from the earliest videos of a creator to track the evolution of their content style.
• Engagement Audits: Gathering view counts, likes, and comment volume data for comprehensive media reports.

Example Prompts

1. "OpenClaw, please extract all the video details from this channel: https://www.youtube.com/@TechReviews, specifically focusing on their most popular content."
2. "Can you monitor the last 20 videos uploaded to this channel https://www.youtube.com/@EducationHub and create a summary table of their view counts and engagement?"
3. "I need to analyze the earliest videos from https://www.youtube.com/@DocumentaryChannel to see how their production quality has evolved over time. Please fetch the data for me."

Tips & Limitations

• Long Execution Time: Because this skill interacts with live browser instances, it can take several minutes to process. Monitor the terminal logs carefully for timestamps like [HH:MM:SS] Task Status: running.
• API Key Required: The skill will fail if the BROWSERACT_API_KEY is not present. Always double-check your environment variables before initiating a request.
• Parameter Flexibility: Always specify the Video_type (Latest, Popular, or Earliest) to ensure the API extracts the specific subset of data you require. If left blank, it defaults to Popular.