YouTube Reader

YouTubeReader fetches the transcript for a YouTube watch URL and applies recursive chunking by default.

youtube_reader.py

from agno.agent import Agent
from agno.knowledge.knowledge import Knowledge
from agno.knowledge.reader.youtube_reader import YouTubeReader
from agno.models.openai import OpenAIResponses
from agno.vectordb.pgvector import PgVector

db_url = "postgresql+psycopg://ai:ai@localhost:5532/ai"

knowledge = Knowledge(
    name="YouTube Knowledge Base",
    description="Knowledge base from YouTube video transcripts",
    vector_db=PgVector(
        table_name="youtube_vectors",
        db_url=db_url,
    ),
)

agent = Agent(
    model=OpenAIResponses(id="gpt-5.2"),
    knowledge=knowledge,
    search_knowledge=True,
)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    knowledge.insert(
        url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLkBNnnA8Ac",
        metadata={"source": "youtube", "type": "educational"},
        reader=YouTubeReader(),
    )
    agent.print_response(
        "What are the main topics discussed in the video?",
        markdown=True,
    )

Run the Agent

Set up your virtual environment

uv venv --python 3.12
source .venv/bin/activate

Install dependencies

uv pip install -U "agno[youtube]" openai pgvector psycopg sqlalchemy

Export the API key

export OPENAI_API_KEY=your_openai_api_key_here

Run PgVector

docker run -d \
  -e POSTGRES_DB=ai \
  -e POSTGRES_USER=ai \
  -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=ai \
  -e PGDATA=/var/lib/postgresql \
  -v pgvolume:/var/lib/postgresql \
  -p 5532:5432 \
  --name pgvector \
  agnohq/pgvector:18

Run the agent

python youtube_reader.py

Reader Parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
`chunking_strategy`	`Optional[ChunkingStrategy]`	`RecursiveChunking()`	Strategy used to chunk documents

YouTubeReader also accepts the base Reader constructor parameters.

Use Knowledge.insert() with YouTubeReader. Knowledge.ainsert() passes a document name to YouTubeReader.async_read(), which accepts only the URL, so asynchronous knowledge ingestion fails.

Next Steps

Task	Guide
Configure recursive chunking	Recursive Chunking
Inspect the complete API	YouTube Reader Reference
Compare available readers	Readers Overview