crewai-transcriptapi

TranscriptAPI: hosted YouTube transcript + video-discovery API for AI agents. CrewAI tools edition. Also available as an n8n community node, an MCP server and agent skills.

This package gives CrewAI agents two tools over TranscriptAPI:

• TranscriptAPITool: fetch the transcript of any YouTube video (full URL, youtu.be, Shorts, or bare ID) as plain text or timestamped JSON, with metadata. The hero tool: 1 credit per call.
• TranscriptAPISearchTool: search YouTube for videos or channels to discover content before fetching transcripts. 1 credit per page.

Installation

pip install crewai-transcriptapi

Credentials

You need a TranscriptAPI key (starts with sk_):

1. Create an account at transcriptapi.com: 100 free credits, no card (one-time); paid plans from $5/mo (1,000 credits).
2. Create an API key on the dashboard.
3. Export it:

export TRANSCRIPTAPI_API_KEY="sk_..."

Usage

from crewai import Agent
from crewai_transcriptapi import TranscriptAPITool, TranscriptAPISearchTool

researcher = Agent(
    role="Video researcher",
    goal="Find and summarize YouTube content on a topic",
    backstory="Researches spoken video content via transcripts.",
    tools=[TranscriptAPISearchTool(), TranscriptAPITool()],
)

The agent can then search for videos on a topic and fetch each transcript for summarizing, quoting, translating or analysis.

Tool reference

TranscriptAPITool

TranscriptAPISearchTool

Response envelope

Both tools return a stable JSON string and never raise:

{"success": true, "data": {"transcript": "...", "metadata": {"title": "..."}}}

{"success": false, "error": {"code": "out_of_credits", "message": "The account is out of credits. See https://transcriptapi.com/billing."}}

Error codes: missing_api_key, invalid_api_key, out_of_credits, not_found, rate_limited, network, bad_response, http_<status>. Failed calls are never charged.

Resources

• TranscriptAPI documentation
• Pricing
• Family: n8n node · MCP server · agent skills

Disclosure

TranscriptAPI is an independent product and is not affiliated with or endorsed by YouTube or Google. Use of these tools is subject to the TranscriptAPI terms.

License

MIT