Transcripts for AI agents and LLM pipelines
Give your AI agent a YouTube transcript or the text of an uploaded recording. Connect through MCP, an agent skill or REST. Your LLM pipeline gets timestamped text to search, quote or summarize.
- MCP server with eight tools
- An agent skill in SKILL.md form
- Paged output that fits a context window
How it works
- MCP first
- Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, VS Code and Claude Code connect to https://api.transcript1.com/mcp and call the tools directly.
- Agent skills and API guidance
- SKILL.md tells a skills-aware agent how to connect, which tools to call and how to avoid duplicate jobs. llms.txt points agents to the API documentation.
- Text that fits
- The default text format puts a timestamp on every line. Long transcripts are paged at segment boundaries with next_from_seconds.
- Retries that do not cost twice
- The transcribe tool reuses a matching transcription from the last 24 hours, and get_transcription reads a job by id.
- A REST API for pipelines
- Batch jobs can use the same API with webhooks, JSON segments and word timings.
MCP
Get a YouTube transcript for your AI agent
transcribe waits for the result and returns the first page. If the job is not finished, the agent gets an id and calls get_transcription instead of retrying.
transcribe(platform="youtube", url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ")
get_transcription(id="tr_8fK2Lm0PqRsTuVwXyZaBcD", from_seconds=900)Skill
Add the agent skill
Agents that support skills can discover transcript1 from the index and read its instructions from SKILL.md.
https://transcript1.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json
https://transcript1.com/.well-known/agent-skills/transcript1/SKILL.mdREST
Pass timestamped text to an LLM pipeline
Request text with timestamps and pass it to your model. Read long transcripts in pages to manage the context window. Use a webhook_url for batch jobs.
curl "https://api.transcript1.com/v1/transcriptions/tr_8fK2Lm0PqRsTuVwXyZaBcD?format=text×tamps=true" \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $TRANSCRIPT1_API_KEY"Start with 60 free minutes
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Frequently asked questions
Something missing? Ask support
Which agents can use transcript1?
Any MCP client that supports remote servers, including Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, VS Code and Claude Code. Agents that read SKILL.md files can use the agent skill.
How do I authenticate an agent?
Claude and ChatGPT sign you in with OAuth. For other agents, create an API key that starts with t1_ and send it as a Bearer token.
How does an agent handle a very long transcript?
Results are paged. Each page ends at a segment boundary and includes next_from_seconds, which the agent passes as from_seconds to read the next page.
Will a retry charge me twice?
Not within 24 hours. transcribe reuses a matching transcription for the same video and options, and agents are told to use get_transcription instead of retrying.
Can Claude summarize YouTube videos with transcript1?
transcript1 returns the transcript through MCP. Your AI assistant writes the summary using that text. You can also pass the transcript to your own LLM pipeline.