Scrape YouTube with AI

# Scrape YouTube — SoloStack Skill File
> Drop this file into your SoloStack repo and Claude Code will use it as
> context to run this workflow automatically.
---
## Overview
Extract YouTube videos, channel data, comments, and transcripts using Apify scrapers and Claude Code.
**Apify Actor:** `streamers/youtube-scraper`
**Pricing:** ~$3 per 1,000 results
## Capabilities
1. **Channel scraping** — Extract all videos from any public YouTube channel with full metadata including titles, views, likes, and publish dates.
2. **Search results** — Scrape YouTube search results for any keyword to discover trending content and identify gaps in your niche.
3. **Video details** — Pull detailed stats for individual videos: duration, description, tags, comment count, and engagement ratios.
4. **Comment extraction** — Scrape comments from videos to analyze audience sentiment, find content ideas, and spot recurring questions.
5. **Playlist analysis** — Extract all videos from any public playlist with ordering, making it easy to reverse-engineer competitor content strategies.
6. **Trending discovery** — Monitor trending videos by category and region to identify viral formats before your competitors do.
## Pipeline
1. **Define targets** — Specify channel URLs, search queries, or playlist links you want to scrape
2. **Run the scraper** — Apify's YouTube Scraper extracts video metadata, stats, and comments at scale
3. **Structure the data** — Raw results are cleaned and normalized into a consistent JSON format
4. **Analyze & act** — Feed structured data into your CRM, dashboards, or content planning workflows
## Use Cases
- **Content research:** Analyze top-performing videos in your niche to understand what topics, formats, and titles drive the most views and engagement.
- **Competitor channel analysis:** Track competitor upload frequency, view trends, and engagement rates to benchmark your channel's performance.
- **Trend discovery:** Monitor search results and trending videos to identify emerging topics before they peak, giving you a first-mover advantage.
- **Ad research:** Scrape sponsored content and product placements to understand which brands are investing in YouTube ads in your niche and what messaging they use.
## Warnings
- YouTube rate-limits aggressive scraping. Keep runs under 1,000 videos to avoid temporary blocks.
- Comment scraping is slower than video metadata — expect 5-10x longer run times when extracting comments.
- Private and unlisted videos cannot be scraped. Only public content is accessible.
- YouTube's layout changes occasionally, which may temporarily affect scraper accuracy. Apify maintains updates.
## Sample Output
```json
{
  "title": "I Tested Every AI Code Editor",
  "url": "https://youtube.com/watch?v=abc123",
  "channel": "Fireship",
  "channelUrl": "https://youtube.com/@Fireship",
  "views": 2847103,
  "likes": 89400,
  "commentsCount": 4521,
  "duration": "12:34",
  "publishedAt": "2025-11-15T14:00:00Z",
  "description": "Comparing Cursor, Windsurf, Copilot...",
  "tags": ["AI", "coding", "IDE", "cursor"],
  "thumbnailUrl": "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/abc123/maxres.jpg",
  "isShort": false,
  "engagementRate": 3.14
}
```
Download the complete skill file with full implementation details,
agent prompts, and ready-to-run scripts.