YouTube Transcription Plugin

The YouTube Transcription Plugin enables seamless integration with YouTube videos to fetch and transcribe captions. It provides transcription previews and allows controlled access to full transcriptions, ensuring a concise and efficient user experience.

Features

• Extracts captions from YouTube videos.
• Provides a preview of the transcription (first 300 characters by default).
• Allows optional access to the full transcription if needed.
• Validates YouTube URLs to ensure proper processing.
• Simple integration with ElizaOS runtime and services.

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Installation

To include the YouTube Transcription Plugin in your project, follow these steps:

1. Install the required dependency for caption scraping:

   npm install youtube-captions-scraper

2. Include the YouTubeTranscriptionService and youtubeTranscription action in your project as described below.

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Usage

Service: YouTubeTranscriptionService

The service is responsible for extracting captions from YouTube videos using the youtube-captions-scraper library.

Methods:

• getTranscription(videoUrl: string): Promise<string>

  • Fetches the transcription for the given YouTube video URL.
  • Extracts captions and joins them into a single string.

• extractVideoId(url: string): string

  • Extracts the YouTube video ID from a valid URL.

Action: youtubeTranscription

The action manages the client interaction, including:

1. Validating the YouTube URL.
2. Fetching the transcription using the service.
3. Returning a preview (first 300 characters) to the client.

Key Properties:

• Name: YOUTUBE_TRANSCRIPTION
• Similes:
  • YT_TRANSCRIBE
  • TRANSCRIBE_VIDEO
  • GET_CAPTIONS
  • FETCH_YOUTUBE_CAPTIONS
• Description: Fetch and transcribe captions from a YouTube video.
• Examples: Includes sample user-agent interactions for testing.

Validation Logic:

The plugin checks if the user input contains a valid YouTube URL:

return (
    !!content &&
    /(?:https?:\/\/)?(?:www\.)?(youtube\.com|youtu\.be)/.test(content)
);

Response Logic:

• Returns a transcription preview (300 characters by default).
• Provides an option to request the full transcription if needed.

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Example Integration

Initialize Service

import { YouTubeTranscriptionService } from "../services/youtubeTranscriptionService";

const transcriptionService = new YouTubeTranscriptionService();
await transcriptionService.initialize();

Use in Action Handler

const transcription = await transcriptionService.getTranscription(videoUrl);
const previewLength = 300;
const preview =
    transcription.length > previewLength
        ? transcription.slice(0, previewLength) + "..."
        : transcription;

callback({
    text: `Here's a preview of the transcription:\n\n${preview}\n\nYou can request the full transcription if needed.`,
});

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Environment Variables

This plugin does not require additional API keys or environment variables.

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Error Handling

• Invalid YouTube URL: Throws an error if the provided URL is not valid.
• Transcription Fetch Failure: Handles errors gracefully and logs the issue for debugging.

catch (error) {
    elizaLogger.error("YouTube transcription error:", error.message);
    callback({
        text: "Sorry, I couldn't fetch the transcription for this video.",
    });
}

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Contributing

Contributions are welcome! To contribute:

1. Fork the repository.
2. Create a feature branch.
3. Commit your changes.
4. Submit a pull request.

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License

This plugin is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.

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Contact

For questions or support, reach out to the maintainers through the project's issue tracker.