yt-dlp + ffmpeg Setup

This skill wraps two CLI tools:

• yt-dlp — downloads audio/video and extracts subtitles, descriptions, and metadata from YouTube, Vimeo, and hundreds of other sites. Required for every workflow in this skill.
• ffmpeg — converts downloaded formats. Required only for the audio-transcription fallback path (yt-dlp -x invokes it internally, and direct-URL workflows use it to convert .webm/.mkv to .m4a).

Both should end up on $PATH.

Install with Homebrew (recommended on macOS)

brew install yt-dlp ffmpeg

Homebrew places both on PATH automatically (/opt/homebrew/bin on Apple Silicon, /usr/local/bin on Intel).

Verify

command -v yt-dlp && yt-dlp --version
command -v ffmpeg && ffmpeg -version | head -1

Both should print a path and a version.

Alternative install options

If the user doesn’t use Homebrew, or wants a pinned version:

• yt-dlp — https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp (prebuilt binaries, pipx, conda, and many package managers)
• ffmpeg — https://ffmpeg.org/download.html (official static builds for macOS, Linux, Windows)

Whichever install path the user takes, the only requirement is that both binaries end up on $PATH. The verification step above is the final confirmation.