YouTube Transcripts in GitHub Actions and Scheduled Jobs

A daily workflow that fetches new transcripts

Add TRANSCRIPTYT_KEY as a repository secret. The job lists a channel's latest uploads and saves each new transcript as a Markdown file in the repo.

# .github/workflows/transcripts.yml
on:
  schedule: [{ cron: "0 6 * * *" }]
  workflow_dispatch:
jobs:
  fetch:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    permissions: { contents: write }
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - run: python fetch.py
        env:
          TRANSCRIPTYT_KEY: ${{ secrets.TRANSCRIPTYT_KEY }}
      - run: |
          git config user.name github-actions
          git config user.email github-actions@users.noreply.github.com
          git add transcripts && git commit -m "New transcripts" || true
          git push

The script

# fetch.py
import os, pathlib, requests

API = "https://transcript-yt.com/v1"
H = {"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['TRANSCRIPTYT_KEY']}"}
out = pathlib.Path("transcripts"); out.mkdir(exist_ok=True)

videos = requests.get(f"{API}/playlist", params={"url": "https://www.youtube.com/@mkbhd", "limit": 10},
                      headers=H, timeout=60).json()["videos"]
for v in videos:
    path = out / f"{v['videoId']}.md"
    if path.exists():
        continue
    r = requests.get(f"{API}/transcript", params={"url": v["videoId"], "format": "md"},
                     headers=H, timeout=300)
    if r.ok:
        path.write_text(r.text)

Same job on a VPS or container

The script runs unchanged from cron, a Docker container, or a Render or Railway cron job, since only transcript-yt.com is contacted. Without code, the n8n, Make, and Zapier guides build the same schedule.