YouTube Comment Analysis

Execute all steps sequentially without asking for user approval. Use TodoWrite to track progress.

Step 0: Check for video summary

If you don't know from conversation context whether a video summary exists for this URL, extract video ID from URL and check if file matching <output_directory>/youtube - * ({video_id}).md exists.

If no summary file exists OR you don't know from context, ask user:

AskUserQuestion:
- question: "No video summary found. How would you like to proceed with comment analysis?"
- header: "Mode"
- options:
  1. label: "Create transcript first"
     description: "Run youtube-to-markdown skill to create video summary, then cross-analyze comments against it"
  2. label: "Standalone analysis"
     description: "Analyze comments without video context (faster, less informed)"

If user chooses "Create transcript first": Run youtube-to-markdown skill with the URL first, then proceed with youtube-comment-analysis skill.

If summary exists OR user chooses "Standalone analysis": Proceed directly to Step 1.

Step 1: Extract comments

python3 ./extract_comments.py "<YOUTUBE_URL>" "<output_directory>"

Creates: youtube_{VIDEO_ID}name.txt, youtube{VIDEO_ID}_comments.md

Step 2: Clean comments

task_tool:

• subagent_type: "general-purpose"
• model: "haiku"
• prompt:

Standalone mode (no summary):

Read <output_directory>/${BASE_NAME}_comments.md and clean/curate comments. Write to <output_directory>/${BASE_NAME}_comments_cleaned.md. Do not translate.

Tasks:
- Remove low-value: "+1", "thanks", "great video", spam, duplicates
- Remove comments that repeat content from other comments

Sequential mode (with summary from youtube-to-markdown):

Read Summary section from <output_directory>/youtube - * ({video_id}).md file to understand main points.

Read <output_directory>/${BASE_NAME}_comments.md and clean/curate comments. Write to <output_directory>/${BASE_NAME}_comments_cleaned.md. Do not translate.

Tasks:
- Remove low-value: "+1", "thanks", "great video", spam, duplicates
- Remove comments that are off-topic (use summary to identify)
- Remove comments that repeat content from the summary or other comments

Step 3: Extract Golden Comments

task_tool:

• subagent_type: "general-purpose"
• prompt:

Standalone mode (no summary):

Read <output_directory>/${BASE_NAME}_comments_cleaned.md. Extract and condense the MOST exceptional insights from highly upvoted comments. No fluff, NOT a document. Do not translate. Write to <output_directory>/${BASE_NAME}_comment_gold.md in format:

**Golden Comments**:
- [true insights from comments]

Sequential mode (with summary from youtube-to-markdown):

Read Summary section from <output_directory>/youtube - * ({video_id}).md file.

Read <output_directory>/${BASE_NAME}_comments_cleaned.md. Extract, condense, combine and summarize ruthlessly for the MOST exceptional true golden insights NOT already covered by the summary. No fluff, NOT a document. Write to <output_directory>/${BASE_NAME}_comment_gold.md in format:

**Golden Comments**:
- [any true insights hiding in the comment garbage, NOT in summary]

Step 4: Finalize

python3 ./finalize_comments.py "${BASE_NAME}" "<output_directory>"

Output: youtube - {title} - comments ({video_id}).md

Use --debug flag to keep intermediate work files for inspection.