claudetube 0.1.1

Let Claude watch YouTube videos - transcripts + on-demand frame extraction

claudetube

Let AI watch and understand online videos.

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claudetube downloads online videos, transcribes them with faster-whisper, and lets AI "see" specific moments by extracting frames on-demand. Built for Claude Code but works as a standalone Python library with any AI tool.

Quick Start

Prerequisites

• Python 3.10+
• ffmpeg (system package)

  # macOS
  brew install ffmpeg
  
  # Ubuntu/Debian
  sudo apt install ffmpeg
  

Install

git clone https://github.com/thoughtpunch/claudetube
cd claudetube
./install.sh

Or via pip (once published):

pip install claudetube

The installer does three things:

1. Creates a Python venv at ~/.claudetube/venv/
2. Installs the claudetube package + dependencies (yt-dlp, faster-whisper)
3. Copies slash commands to ~/.claude/commands/ (global to all Claude Code sessions)

Restart Claude Code after installing.

Works from any Claude Code session

The installer puts slash commands in ~/.claude/commands/, which is the global commands directory. Every Claude Code instance on your machine will have /yt available -- no per-project setup needed.

Why not a pre-built binary?

claudetube depends on faster-whisper (C++ transcription engine) and ffmpeg (system media tool). These have platform-specific native code that can't be bundled into a single static binary. The install script handles all of this automatically.

Usage with Claude Code

/yt https://youtube.com/watch?v=abc123 how did they make the sprites?

Claude will:

1. Download and transcribe the video (~60s first time, cached after)
2. Read the transcript
3. If needed, extract frames to "see" specific moments
4. Answer your question

Commands

Command	Purpose
/yt <url> [question]	Analyze a video
/yt:see <id> <timestamp>	Quick frames (general visuals)
/yt:hq <id> <timestamp>	HQ frames (code, text, diagrams)
/yt:transcript <id>	Read cached transcript
/yt:list	List all cached videos

Python API

from claudetube import process_video, get_frames_at

# Transcribe a video
result = process_video("https://youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID")
print(result.transcript_srt.read_text())

# Extract frames at a specific timestamp
frames = get_frames_at("VIDEO_ID", start_time=120, duration=10)

How It Works

1. Download -- Fetches lowest quality video (144p) for speed
2. Transcribe -- Uses faster-whisper with batched inference
3. Cache -- Stores everything at ~/.claude/video_cache/{VIDEO_ID}/
4. Drill-in -- Extract frames on-demand when visual context is needed

Cache Structure

~/.claude/video_cache/
└── dYP2V_nK8o0/
    ├── state.json     # Metadata (title, description, tags, etc.)
    ├── audio.mp3      # Extracted audio
    ├── audio.srt      # Timestamped transcript
    ├── audio.txt      # Plain text transcript
    ├── drill/         # Quick frames (480p)
    └── hq/            # High-quality frames (1280p)

Architecture

claudetube uses a provider-based architecture. Video downloading is handled through yt-dlp, which currently supports YouTube and 1000+ other sites. The transcription and frame extraction pipeline is provider-agnostic -- it works with any video source that yt-dlp supports, and the architecture is designed to accommodate additional providers in the future.

Development

git clone https://github.com/thoughtpunch/claudetube
cd claudetube
python3 -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -e ".[dev]"
pytest

Linting

black src/ tests/
isort --profile black src/ tests/
flake8 src/ tests/

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please open an issue or submit a pull request.

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch (git checkout -b feature/my-feature)
3. Run tests and linting before committing
4. Open a pull request against main

Legal

This project is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or associated with YouTube, Google, or Alphabet Inc. "YouTube" is a trademark of Google LLC. This software is an independent, open-source tool that interacts with publicly available video content through third-party libraries (yt-dlp). Users are solely responsible for ensuring their use of this software complies with all applicable terms of service and laws.

License

MIT -- free to use, modify, and distribute.