youtube-data

1# YouTube Data
2 
3YouTube data access via [TranscriptAPI.com](https://transcriptapi.com) — lightweight alternative to Google's YouTube Data API.
4 
5## Setup
6 
7If `$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.
8 
9## Required Headers
10 
11Every request needs two headers:
12 
13- **Authorization:** `Bearer $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY`
14- **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.
15 
16## API Reference
17 
18Full OpenAPI spec: [transcriptapi.com/openapi.json](https://transcriptapi.com/openapi.json) — consult this for the latest parameters and schemas.
19 
20## Video Data (transcript + metadata) — 1 credit
21 
22```bash
23curl -s "https://transcriptapi.com/api/v2/youtube/transcript\
24?video_url=VIDEO_URL&format=json&include_timestamp=true&send_metadata=true" \
25  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TRANSCRIPT_API_KEY" \
26  -H "User-Agent: YourAgent/1.0"
27```
28 
29**Response:**
30 
31```json
32{
33  "video_id": "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
34  "language": "en",
35  "transcript": [
36    { "text": "We're no strangers to love", "start": 18.0, "duration": 3.5 }
37  ],
38  "metadata": {
39    "title": "Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up",
40    "author_name": "Rick Astley",
41    "author_url": "https://www.youtube.com/@RickAstley",
42…