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gobbler-mcp

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Gobbler

Universal Content Conversion to Markdown for AI

Gobbler transforms any content—YouTube videos, web pages, documents, audio files, even live browser sessions—into clean, structured markdown that AI systems can immediately reason about.

Tests Security Docs Python 3.11+ License: MIT

The Problem

AI assistants work best with markdown. But content exists in countless formats—PDFs, videos, web pages behind logins, audio recordings. Getting that content into a format AI can use requires:

  • Different tools for each content type

  • Custom scripts to extract and format

  • Lost metadata and inconsistent output

  • No unified way for AI agents to access content

Gobbler solves this. One CLI, one output format, multiple content types.

Related MCP server: Markdownify MCP Server

The Solution

# Every content type → Same pattern → Same output format
gobbler youtube "https://youtube.com/watch?v=..." -o transcript.md
gobbler document report.pdf -o report.md
gobbler audio meeting.mp3 -o meeting.md
gobbler webpage "https://docs.example.com" -o docs.md

Every conversion produces markdown with YAML frontmatter:

---
source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID
type: youtube_transcript
title: "Video Title"
duration: 847
word_count: 2341
converted_at: 2025-01-03T10:30:00Z
---

# Video Title

Content here, ready for AI consumption...

Quick Start

# Install
git clone https://github.com/Enablement-Engineering/gobbler.git
cd gobbler && make install

# Start services (for web/document conversion)
make start-docker

# Convert content
gobbler youtube "https://youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"
gobbler document paper.pdf --no-ocr -o paper.md
gobbler audio interview.mp3 --model small -o interview.md

📖 Full Documentation

Project Status

Gobbler is an active beta project focused on reliable, agent-friendly content conversion. The supported automation surface is intentionally CLI-first:

  • Primary interface: gobbler CLI for humans, scripts, and AI agents.

  • Agent experience: markdown Skills and setup docs teach agents the same commands a human can run and verify.

  • Browser support: optional local extension for authenticated browser sessions and supported AI chat surfaces.

See the security policy and agent usage guide for the supported automation workflow.

CLI-First, Skills-Ready

Gobbler's primary interface is the gobbler CLI. Agents use Skills to learn those same commands, and the browser extension adds authenticated browser-session access through the CLI. For agent workflows, start with the agent usage guide.

1. CLI

gobbler youtube URL              # YouTube transcripts
gobbler audio FILE               # Audio/video transcription
gobbler document FILE            # PDF, DOCX, PPTX, XLSX
gobbler webpage URL              # Web pages (JS-rendered)
gobbler batch youtube-playlist URL  # Batch processing

2. Skills (For CLI-Capable AI Agents)

Skills are markdown instruction files (SKILL.md) that teach AI agents how to use the gobbler CLI. The language in this repo is intentionally platform-neutral: a Gobbler skill is for any AI agent that can read skill files, run shell commands, and inspect output files.

skills/
├── gobbler/          # 🦃 Convert/extract/transcribe/archive to markdown
│   └── references/   # YouTube, audio, document, webpage, and batch details
├── gobbler-browser/  # 🔌 Browser automation + AI chat integrations
└── gobbler-setup/    # 🔧 Installation and troubleshooting

The main gobbler skill covers normal content-to-markdown conversion. Detailed recipes live in skills/gobbler/references/, so agents can load YouTube, audio, document, webpage, or batch specifics only when needed.

Install skills with the open skills installer:

# Inspect available Gobbler skills
npx skills@latest add Enablement-Engineering/gobbler --list

# Interactive install: choose skills and target agent(s)
npx skills@latest add Enablement-Engineering/gobbler

# Non-interactive example: install the main conversion skill globally
npx skills@latest add Enablement-Engineering/gobbler --skill gobbler --global --yes

The installer copies or symlinks skill files into the selected agent's skill directory. It does not install the gobbler CLI itself; install Gobbler with make install or uv tool install . first.

Skills use progressive disclosure—agents see lightweight metadata first, then read full CLI instructions or reference files when triggered.

Features

Content Conversion

Type

Command

Backend

YouTube

gobbler youtube URL

youtube-transcript-api

Audio/Video

gobbler audio FILE

faster-whisper (local)

Documents

gobbler document FILE

Docling (Docker)

Web Pages

gobbler webpage URL

Crawl4AI (Docker)

Browser Automation

Control browsers via the Gobbler extension for authenticated content:

gobbler browser extract          # Extract current page
gobbler notebooklm query "..."   # Query NotebookLM
gobbler chatgpt query "..."      # Send to ChatGPT
gobbler claude query "..."       # Send to Claude.ai
gobbler gemini query "..."       # Send to Gemini

Setup:

  1. Load the extension in Chrome:

    • Go to chrome://extensions/

    • Enable "Developer mode"

    • Click "Load unpacked" → select browser-extension/ folder

  2. Create a tab group named "Gobbler" (right-click any tab → Add to group → New group)

  3. Add tabs you want to control to the Gobbler group

Only tabs in the "Gobbler" group are accessible—this prevents accidental access to sensitive tabs.

Batch Processing

gobbler batch youtube-playlist "https://youtube.com/playlist?list=..."
gobbler batch directory ./documents --pattern "*.pdf"
gobbler batch webpages urls.txt --output-dir ./pages

Architecture

Gobbler provides a CLI-first architecture. Skills teach AI agents to call the same CLI that humans and scripts use.

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                     Your Automations                        │
└──────────────┬──────────────────────┬──────────────────────┘
               │                      │
      ┌────────▼────┐          ┌──────▼─────┐
      │   Skills    │          │  gobbler   │
      │(CLI instrs) │          │    CLI     │
      └────────┬────┘          └──────┬─────┘
               │                      │
               └──────────────┬───────┘
                              ▼
                    ┌─────────────────┐
                    │  Provider Layer │
                    │  (Converters)   │
                    └────────┬────────┘
                             │
         ┌───────────────────┼───────────────────┐
         ▼                   ▼                   ▼
    ┌─────────┐        ┌───────────┐       ┌─────────┐
    │ Whisper │        │  Docling  │       │Crawl4AI │
    │ (local) │        │ (Docker)  │       │(Docker) │
    └─────────┘        └───────────┘       └─────────┘

Skills are markdown files that teach agents which CLI commands to run.

Installation

Prerequisites

  • Python 3.11+

  • uv (Python package manager)

  • Docker Desktop (for web/document conversion)

  • ffmpeg (for audio extraction from video)

Install

# Install uv (if not already installed)
curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

# Clone and install
git clone https://github.com/Enablement-Engineering/gobbler.git
cd gobbler
make install

# Start Docker services
make start-docker

# Verify
gobbler --version

What Works Without Docker

  • YouTube transcripts - Uses YouTube's API directly

  • Audio transcription - Uses local Whisper model

What Needs Docker

  • Document conversion - Docling service (port 5001)

  • Web scraping - Crawl4AI service (port 11235)

Configuration

Config file: ~/.config/gobbler/config.yaml

services:
  docling: "http://localhost:5001"
  crawl4ai: "http://localhost:11235"

storage:
  type: "sqlite"
  path: "~/.config/gobbler/jobs.db"

logging:
  level: "INFO"

Troubleshooting

Document conversion crashes

# Use --no-ocr for digital PDFs (faster, less memory)
gobbler document file.pdf --no-ocr -o output.md

Service not responding

make start-docker
make status
docker ps -a --filter "name=gobbler"
curl http://localhost:5001/health   # Docling
curl http://localhost:11235/health  # Crawl4AI

YouTube rate limited or IP blocked

# Wait and retry, or try another caption language
gobbler youtube "URL" --language auto

# Optional: enable the documented TranscriptAPI fallback
export TRANSCRIPTAPI_KEY=your_key
gobbler youtube "URL"

YouTube may temporarily return HTTP 429 for transcript timedtext requests. If this happens, wait 10-15 minutes and retry, try a different video or caption language, configure a documented YouTube proxy, set TRANSCRIPTAPI_KEY to enable the TranscriptAPI fallback, or use another transcript source if one is available.

See gobbler-setup skill for complete troubleshooting.

Project Structure

gobbler/
├── src/
│   ├── gobbler_cli/       # CLI interface (typer)
│   ├── gobbler_core/      # Converters & utilities
│   ├── gobbler_relay/     # Browser extension bridge
│   └── gobbler_queue/     # Background job queue
├── skills/                # AI agent instruction files
├── browser-extension/     # Chrome/Firefox extension
└── docker-compose.yml     # External services

Documentation

📖 Full Documentation - Installation, configuration, and usage guides

Key pages:

License

MIT License - see LICENSE file.

Acknowledgments

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