yt

yt

Quick YouTube lookup via TranscriptAPI.com.

Setup

If $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY is not set, read [references/auth-setup.md](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.

API Reference

Full OpenAPI spec: transcriptapi.com/openapi.json — consult this for the latest parameters and schemas.

Transcript — 1 credit

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

Search — 1 credit

GET https://transcriptapi.com/api/v2/youtube/search?q=QUERY&type=video&limit=10
Authorization: Bearer $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY
User-Agent: YourAgent/1.0

| Param | Default | Values |

| ------- | ------- | ---------------------- |

| q | — | 1-200 chars (required) |

| type | video | video, channel |

| limit | 20 | 1-50 |

Channel latest — FREE

GET https://transcriptapi.com/api/v2/youtube/channel/latest?channel=@TED
Authorization: Bearer $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY
User-Agent: YourAgent/1.0

Returns last 15 videos with exact view counts and publish dates. Accepts @handle, channel URL, or UC... ID.

Resolve handle — FREE

GET https://transcriptapi.com/api/v2/youtube/channel/resolve?input=@TED
Authorization: Bearer $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY
User-Agent: YourAgent/1.0

Use to convert @handle to UC... channel ID.

Errors

| Code | Meaning | Action |

| -------- | ---------------- | ---------------------------------------------- |

| 401 | Bad API key | Check key |

| 402 | No credits | transcriptapi.com/billing |

| 403/1010 | Cloudflare block | Add or fix User-Agent header |

| 404 | Not found | No captions or resource doesn't exist |

| 408 | Timeout | Retry once |

Free tier: 100 credits. Search and transcript cost 1 credit. Channel latest and resolve are free.

Copy-paste examples

Every request in this file as a ready-to-run one-liner: [references/curl-examples.md](references/curl-examples.md)