Add Video to Collection

Why? Curated collections contain videos from multiple sources—manually editing CSVs causes formatting bugs and duplicates. This skill uses the CLI to add videos safely.

Quick Start

ytscriber add "<youtube-url>" --folder <collection>

[!IMPORTANT] Always quote URLs to prevent shell interpretation of ? and & characters.

| Collection | Description | |------------|-------------| | library-of-minds | Thought leaders, interviews, educational content | | random | Miscellaneous, one-off interesting content | | (custom) | Any folder name you specify |

Workflow

1. Identify the Target Collection

Determine which collection the video belongs to:

| If the video is... | Use collection | |--------------------|----------------| | Thought leader, interview, educational | library-of-minds | | Miscellaneous, one-off interesting content | random | | User specifies a collection | Use that collection |

2. Run the CLI Command

ytscriber add "<youtube-url>" --folder <collection>

[!CAUTION] NEVER manually edit CSV files to add videos. Always use ytscriber add to ensure proper formatting and duplicate detection.

Examples:

# Add to library-of-minds
ytscriber add "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ" --folder library-of-minds

# Add to random collection
ytscriber add "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw" --folder random

# Verbose output for debugging
ytscriber add "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bZkp7q19f0" --folder random -v

3. Verify the Output

| Output | Meaning | |--------|---------| | Added video XXX to ... | Success — video was added | | Video XXX already exists in ... | Duplicate — no action needed | | Error message | See Troubleshooting below |

4. Offer Transcript Download (Optional)

After adding, ask the user if they want to download the transcript:

ytscriber download --folder <collection>

Troubleshooting

| Problem | Cause | Solution | |---------|-------|----------| | command not found: ytscriber | CLI not installed | Run pip install -e . from project root | | Invalid YouTube URL | Malformed URL | Use full URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID | | Permission denied | File permissions | Check write access to data directory | | Video not appearing in CSV | Silent failure | Run with -v flag to see debug output |

Common Mistakes

Unquoted URLs — Shell interprets ? as glob. Always wrap URLs in double quotes.
Editing CSV directly — Causes newline corruption and duplicate entries. Always use CLI.
Using short URLs — youtu.be/XXX works, but full youtube.com/watch?v=XXX is preferred.
Wrong collection — Double-check the collection name matches an existing folder or will be created.
Forgetting to download transcript — Adding to CSV doesn't download content. Run ytscriber download separately.

Reference

What the CLI handles automatically:

Duplicate detection (skips existing URLs)
URL normalization to canonical format
Proper CSV escaping and formatting
Header creation for new CSV files
Folder creation if it doesn't exist

Metadata populated during transcript download:

Video title
Duration
Upload date
Channel name