A Parts Catalog, Not a Library
YouTube stopped teaching me things at some point. I still find the videos. I just don’t sit there watching them anymore.
This is how it works now: I’m researching something, I find a video that explains exactly what I need, and I drop the URL into Claude Code. A tool called Supadata pulls the transcript. Once Claude has the transcript, it has enough to build a skill – a reusable capability I can call on again. No more re-watching the same tutorial six months later wondering why none of it stuck. The video becomes a tool.
I’ve done this enough times that the overhead started to tick me off. So I had Claude build a skill whose only job is making more YouTube-sourced skills. A tool that makes tools.
This is the part worth stopping on. You find someone explaining how to do a thing. Normally you’d watch it, take notes, try to retain it, fail, watch it again. Here, their explanation is raw material. The transcript is the bridge. The skill is the finished product. When you automate the act of building those skills, you’ve turned someone else’s knowledge into a small machine that keeps running. Indefinitely. Without you.
I look at YouTube differently now. Less like a library. More like a parts catalog.