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

Argument	Type	Default	Description
video_url	str	required	Full YouTube URL (watch, youtu.be, embed, Shorts) or bare 11-character video ID
output_format	str	"text"	"text" for plain transcript, "json" for timestamped segments
language	str	none	Optional preferred transcript language code, for example "es"

TranscriptAPISearchTool

Argument	Type	Default	Description
query	str	required	Search query, 1 to 200 characters
search_type	str	"video"	"video" or "channel"

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