Skill: youtube-dl

When to Use

Use this skill when the user asks to:

• Download a YouTube video
• Extract audio from a YouTube video
• Save a video from the internet
• Convert a YouTube video to MP3/audio
• Download video or audio from any supported site
• Get the audio track from a video URL

Supported Sites

yt-dlp supports 1000+ sites including:

• YouTube, YouTube Music
• Vimeo, Dailymotion
• Twitter/X, Reddit, TikTok
• SoundCloud, Bandcamp
• And many more (run yt-dlp --list-extractors for full list)

Input Parameters

Parameter	Required	Description	Example
url	Yes	Video/audio URL	https://youtube.com/watch?v=xxx
format	No	video (default) or audio	audio
quality	No	best (default), 720, 480, 360	best
output	No	Output directory or file path	~/Downloads/

Procedure

1. Get the URL from the user's request

2. Determine if they want video or audio

3. Run the bundled script:

   # Download video (best quality)
   python3 skills/youtube-dl/scripts/download.py "https://youtube.com/watch?v=xxx"
   
   # Extract audio only (MP3)
   python3 skills/youtube-dl/scripts/download.py "https://youtube.com/watch?v=xxx" --format audio
   
   # Specific quality
   python3 skills/youtube-dl/scripts/download.py "https://youtube.com/watch?v=xxx" --quality 720
   
   # Custom output directory
   python3 skills/youtube-dl/scripts/download.py "https://youtube.com/watch?v=xxx" --output ~/Downloads/
   

4. The script auto-installs yt-dlp if needed

5. Report the downloaded file path and details to the user

Bundled Scripts

Script	Type	Description
scripts/download.py	Python	Download video/audio using yt-dlp

Script Usage

# Download best quality video
python3 scripts/download.py "https://youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"

# Audio only (extracts to best available audio format)
python3 scripts/download.py "https://youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ" --format audio

# Specific video quality
python3 scripts/download.py "https://youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ" --quality 720

# Custom output location
python3 scripts/download.py "https://youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ" --output ~/Music/

# Show video info without downloading
python3 scripts/download.py "https://youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ" --info

Example

download this youtube video: https://youtube.com/watch?v=xxx
extract the audio from this video
save this video as mp3
download the video in 720p
get the audio from this youtube link