WWW::YouTube

Raku package for getting metadata and transcripts of YouTube videos.

The Raku implementation closely follows the Wolfram Language function YouTubeTranscript, [AAf1].

Installation

zef install WWW::YouTube

From GitHub:

zef install https://github.com/antononcube/Raku-WWW-YouTube.git

Usage

Get the transcript of the YouTube video with identifier $id:

youtube-transcript($id)

Details

youtube-transcript extracts the captions of the video, if they exist.
The transcript is returned as plain text.
The YouTube Data API has usage quotas.
Not all YouTube videos have automatic or manual captions. If no captions are available, the function returns a message indicating this.
youtube-transcript processes "captionTracks" of the YouTube Data API, which is a field of YouTube's video metadata.
The field "captionTracks" is an array of objects, where each object represents a single caption track (e.g., for a specific language or type).
From "captionTracks" the "baseURL" string is extracted, which is the URL to fetch the caption content.

Examples

use WWW::YouTube;

my $transcript = youtube-transcript('ewU83vHwN8Y');

say $transcript.chars;

say $transcript.substr(^300);

# 35820
# hi everyone welcome to a wolf from
# language design review for version 14.3
# we are talking about LLM
# graph so
# okay so this is for the purpose of of
# knitting together LLM calls like LLM
# function type calls
# exactly
# to support more complex workflows
# um and and to have asynchronous calls to
# LLMs
# yes to w

Summarize using a Large Language Model (LLM):

use LLM::Functions;
use LLM::Prompts;

llm-synthesize(llm-prompt('Summarize')($transcript), e => 'Gemini')

# This language design review for version 14.3 introduces LLM graphs, which orchestrate LLM calls for complex workflows and asynchronous execution. LLM graphs encapsulate LLM functions within nodes, allowing for chaining and conditional execution. The design includes LLM graph submit for instantiation and information retrieval, offering a powerful update to LLM synthesize and a stepping stone toward more agentic workflows.

CLI

The package provides a Command Line Interface (CLI) script. Here is its usage message:

youtube-transcript --help

# Usage:
#   youtube-transcript <id> -- Get YouTube transcripts.
#   
#     <id>    Video identifier

References

[AAf1] Anton Antonov, YouTubeTranscript, (2025), Wolfram Function Repository.