YouTube Transcript Generator - Build Log
One of my biggest frustrations with online YouTube transcript generators is that, in my experience, they sometimes struggle with longer videos or don't make it easy to get the full transcript in a format I can immediately use. So I decided to vibe-code my own standalone CLI tool.
The real goal wasn't just downloading transcripts, it was turning YouTube videos into AI-ready Markdown documents. Once a transcript is saved, I can drop it straight into ChatGPT, Codex, Claude, or any other LLM to generate summaries, action items, project plans, documentation, research notes, content ideas, or even complete implementations inspired by the video's content.
I thought it'd be fun to share exactly how this project came together.
For this build I used ChatGPT Pro (Codex included)($20/month) for ideation and project planning, then handed everything off to Codex for implementation.
Also worth noting: from initial idea to a polished GitHub repository, this entire project took me just a smidge over 1hr to complete & only used about 15% of my current 5-hour ChatGPT Pro usage allowance and 4% of my weekly allowance.
Here's the exact workflow I used to build the project from idea to GitHub repository.
ChatGPT (Ideation)
- I want to build a stand alone CLI based youtube video transcript generator. Please help me create a mvp_prd.md. Output into one single inline markdown mvp_prd.md
2.Create a 1200x630px image for my project "YouTube Transcript Generator".
3. Update this image to 830x400px for my github readme header.
Codex (Implementation)
- Create a plan based on mvp_prd.md and then save it in the root as plan.md
- I have this project open in vscode. Lets assume that is where the end user will be guided to use this tool from now on. Lets build around that implementation. Is it ready to test from the terminal command line inside of the project root in vscode?
3.Create a command prompt where I can pass the single YouTube video URL in the command. We'll save the urls.txt method for batch processing
4.This project started with a boilerplate file system. Can you go through the root and remove any unnecessary/unused files & folders?
5.Update the README.md so it reflects a proper GitHub repo in my life.
6. Add youtube-transcript-generator-github-readme-thumbnail.png to the header of the readme
7. Add the git clone command to the install section of the readme.
8. Commit & push this project to git@github.com/YouTube-Transcript-Generator.git
See attachments:
- youtube-transcript-generator-thumbnail.png
- youtube-transcript-generator-project-usage.png
- my-vibe-coding-workflow.png
- start-this-business-with-no-experience-transcript.md (video transcript)
- ai-transcript-summary (summary of video transcript)
Have you vibe-coded any standalone CLI tools lately? If so, what problem were you trying to solve?
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YouTube Transcript Generator - Build Log
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