Individual skill
watch
When the user wants to read, transcribe, summarize, or research a video — YouTube link, podcast clip, Loom, TikTok, X/Twitter video, local file, or any URL yt-dlp supports. Use when they paste a video URL, say 'transcribe this,' 'summarize this video,' 'what does this video say about X,' 'pull the transcript,' 'analyze this YouTube video,' or hand you a video for content research. Default is fast transcript-only (no video download). Pass --with-frames when the visual layer matters (UI bugs, on-screen text, visual breakdowns).
general/watch/SKILL.md
Source commit fdbf39b61fbc8cb7cea67949bfb5e8fc567bbc51
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- Matches the observed repository HEAD
- Yes
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- No
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- Observed behavior
- Not checked yet
- Last checked
- Nov 7, 2026
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- Repository stars (not skill ratings)
- 172
- Repository last updated
- May 22, 2026
- License
- MIT
Observed agent integration: No specific integration evidence. Standard SKILL.md installation does not imply verified compatibility.
- design Derived category
- writing Derived category
- research Derived category
- design-interface Derived category
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# Watch — read a video like a PDF
You don't have a video input. This skill bundles a Python script that fetches the timestamped transcript (and optionally frames) so you can answer questions about video content.
**Default mode is transcript-only.** No video download, no frame extraction — just captions pulled via yt-dlp in a few seconds. That covers ~every YouTube video and is the right default for research, summarization, and content analysis.
**Opt into `--with-frames`** only when the visual layer matters: debugging a screen recording, breaking down a thumbnail/hook visually, reading on-screen text, analyzing UI behavior.
## Requirements
Locally installed:
- `yt-dlp` — `brew install yt-dlp` (macOS) / `pipx install yt-dlp` (Linux) / `winget install yt-dlp.yt-dlp` (Windows)
- `ffmpeg` + `ffprobe` — `brew install ffmpeg` / `sudo apt install ffmpeg` / `winget install Gyan.FFmpeg`. Only required for `--with-frames` and the Whisper audio fallback. Transcript-only on a captioned YouTube video does not need ffmpeg.
