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feat: add standalone YouTube transcript downloads - #1590

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lmdevv wants to merge 3 commits into
imputnet:mainfrom
lmdevv:feat/standalone-youtube-captions
Draft

feat: add standalone YouTube transcript downloads#1590
lmdevv wants to merge 3 commits into
imputnet:mainfrom
lmdevv:feat/standalone-youtube-captions

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@lmdevv

@lmdevv lmdevv commented Sep 4, 2026

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Summary

Adds standalone transcript downloads for YouTube videos.

  • Adds a captions download mode to the API and web app.
  • Supports plain text, WebVTT, SRT, and Markdown output.
  • Selects manual captions first, with automatic captions as a fallback.
  • Supports preferred caption language selection.
  • Adds a separate plain-text transcript URL for copying.
  • Adds transcript settings, API documentation, and unit tests.

Motivation

Cobalt already supports attaching subtitles to downloaded media through #1370. This adds the related use case of downloading the transcript without downloading the video or audio.

Scope

  • YouTube is currently supported.
  • The feature uses captions provided by YouTube. It does not generate transcripts with speech-to-text.
  • WebVTT output preserves the source cues.
  • Converted formats normalize caption markup and do not preserve stylized subtitle rendering.

Testing

  • pnpm run --prefix api test:unit
  • Existing API and web CI checks

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