YouTube Transcript API

This project is a Cloudflare Worker that provides an API for retrieving transcripts from YouTube videos. It allows users to fetch transcript data in JSON, SRT, or plain text format.

Features

• Fetch transcripts from YouTube videos using the video URL
• Support for multiple output formats: JSON, SRT, and plain text
• OpenAPI specification for easy integration
• Error handling for invalid URLs, missing transcripts, and more

API Usage

Endpoint

GET /api/transcript

Parameters

• url (required): The full URL of the YouTube video
• output (optional): The desired output format (json, srt, or text). Defaults to json.

Example Request

https://your-worker-url.workers.dev/api/transcript?url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ&output=json

Response Formats

1. JSON (default):

   [
     {
       "text": "Never gonna give you up",
       "start": 0.5,
       "duration": 2.3
     },
     ...
   ]

2. SRT:

   1
   00:00:00,500 --> 00:00:02,800
   Never gonna give you up
   
   2
   00:00:02,800 --> 00:00:05,100
   Never gonna let you down
   

3. Plain Text:

   Never gonna give you up
   Never gonna let you down
   ...
   

OpenAPI Specification

The API provides an OpenAPI specification at the /openapi.json endpoint. This can be used to generate client libraries or integrate with API documentation tools.

Error Handling

The API returns appropriate HTTP status codes and error messages for various scenarios:

• 400: Bad request (Invalid YouTube URL or output format)
• 404: Transcript not available for the video
• 429: Rate limit exceeded
• 500: Internal server error

Development

This project is designed to run on Cloudflare Workers. To set up the development environment:

1. Install Wrangler: npm install -g wrangler

2. Authenticate Wrangler with your Cloudflare account: wrangler login Follow the prompts to log in through your browser.

3. Clone this repository: git clone https://github.com/jamesflores/youtube-subtitles-worker.git cd youtube-subtitles-worker

4. Configure your wrangler.toml file with your account details and Worker name.

5. Run the development server: wrangler dev This will start a local server for testing your Worker.

6. To deploy to Cloudflare Workers: wrangler deploy

License

MIT License

Contributing

Submit a pull request

Support

james [at] jamesflores [dot] net