Add Video to Collection

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.

Workflow

1. Identify the Target Collection

Determine which collection the video belongs to:

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

4. Offer Transcript Download (Optional)

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

ytscriber download --folder <collection>

Troubleshooting

Common Mistakes

1. Unquoted URLs — Shell interprets ? as glob. Always wrap URLs in double quotes.
2. Editing CSV directly — Causes newline corruption and duplicate entries. Always use CLI.
3. Using short URLs — youtu.be/​XXX works, but full youtube.com/​watch?v=XXX is preferred.
4. Wrong collection — Double-check the collection name matches an existing folder or will be created.
5. 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