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name: add-video-to-collection description: Manually add individual YouTube URLs to a custom collection CSV. Use when adding one-off videos to folders like library-of-minds or random, not from a channel extraction.

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

transcript-add <youtube-url> --csv data/<collection>/videos.csv

Collection	CSV Path
library-of-minds	data/library-of-minds/videos.csv
random	data/random/videos.csv

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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

transcript-add <youtube-url> --csv data/<collection>/videos.csv

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

Examples:

# Add to library-of-minds
transcript-add https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ --csv data/library-of-minds/videos.csv

# Add to random collection
transcript-add https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw --csv data/random/videos.csv

# Verbose output for debugging
transcript-add https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bZkp7q19f0 --csv data/random/videos.csv -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:

transcript-download --csv data/<collection>/videos.csv --output-dir data/<collection>/transcripts

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Troubleshooting

Problem	Cause	Solution
command not found: transcript-add	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
CSV file not found	Collection doesn't exist	Create directory first: mkdir -p data/<collection>
Video not appearing in CSV	Silent failure	Run with -v flag to see debug output

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Common Mistakes

1. Editing CSV directly — Causes newline corruption and duplicate entries. Always use CLI.
2. Using short URLs — youtu.be/XXX may not work. Use full youtube.com/watch?v=XXX format.
3. Wrong collection — Double-check the collection name matches an existing folder.
4. Forgetting to download transcript — Adding to CSV doesn't download content. Run transcript-download separately.

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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

Metadata populated during transcript download:

• Video title
• Duration
• Upload date
• Channel name