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Turn a YouTube video into a Claude skill

Claude skills are folders with a SKILL.md file that teach Claude how to do a task. Cat & Paste writes one from a YouTube video: paste the link, and the method the video teaches comes back as a skill folder ready for Claude.

Try it with a video

First one is free. No card.

What you download

The top of a SKILL.md, as it comes out
  • ---
  • name: three-ads-on-a-tiny-budget
  • description: Plans three small ads for a local business with very little to spend. Use it when the user wants customers from ads on a budget of a few dollars a day.
  • ---

Every playbook downloads as a zip holding one folder named after the skill. Inside is SKILL.md, which starts with the name and the description Claude reads to decide when to use it, then the method itself; a references folder holds the steps and examples in full.

Add it to Claude

  1. 1Open the playbook in Cat & Paste and press “add to Claude”: the zip downloads and Claude opens on its Skills page.
  2. 2In Claude, under “Customize”, “Skills”, press “+”, then “Create skill”, then “Upload a skill”.
  3. 3Choose the zip. If uploading is greyed out, turn on code execution in Claude's settings first.

Use it in Claude Code

Claude Code reads skills from folders on your computer. Unzip the playbook into ~/.claude/skills/ to have it in every project, or into .claude/skills/ inside one project, and Claude Code uses it when a task matches its description.

Or skip the file

The connector gives Claude every playbook you have, with nothing to upload, and new ones appear as soon as they are written. On claude.ai, the “add to Claude” button on the connect page opens the form already filled in. In Claude Code, one command adds it:

Claude Code
  • claude mcp add --transport http catandpaste https://api.catandpaste.app/mcp

Which YouTube videos work

Public videos up to 3 hours long when they have captions, and up to 1 hour when they do not. Shorts work too, as long as someone speaks: the cat needs about 100 spoken words. A private video cannot be read, and the read comes back.

What it does not do

It reads what is said in the video, not what is on screen. Code typed in silence, or a slide nobody reads aloud, will not reach the skill.

Questions

What language is the skill written in?

The one you pick: English, Spanish or Italian. The name in SKILL.md stays lowercase with hyphens, as Claude asks.

Which Claude plans can use it?

Skills work on every Claude plan once code execution is on. The connector works on the free plan too, where it is your one custom connector.

Can I turn a whole playlist into skills?

One read is one video. Feed the videos one at a time and each becomes its own skill, all in the same library.

Every way to give your assistant a playbook, step by step: connect your AI