MCP YouTube Transcript Server

A Model Context Protocol server that enables retrieval of transcripts from YouTube videos. This server provides direct access to video transcripts through a simple interface, making it ideal for content analysis and processing.

Table of Contents

• Features
• Getting Started
  • Prerequisites
  • Installation
• Usage
  • Basic Configuration
  • Testing
  • Troubleshooting and Maintenance
• API Reference
• Development
• Contributing
• License

Features

Key capabilities:

• Extract transcripts from YouTube videos
• Support for multiple languages
• Format text with continuous or paragraph mode
• Retrieve video titles and metadata
• Automatic paragraph segmentation
• Text normalization and HTML entity decoding
• Robust error handling
• Timestamp and overlap detection

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18 or higher

Installation

We provide two installation methods:

Option 1: Manual Configuration (Recommended for Production)

1. Create or edit the Claude Desktop configuration file:

   • macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
   • Windows: %APPDATA%Claudeclaude_desktop_config.json

2. Add the following configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "youtube-transcript": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "@sinco-lab/mcp-youtube-transcript"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Quick setup script for macOS:

# Create directory if it doesn't exist
mkdir -p ~/Library/Application Support/Claude

# Create or update config file
cat > ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json << 'EOL'
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "youtube-transcript": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "@sinco-lab/mcp-youtube-transcript"
      ]
    }
  }
}
EOL

Option 2: Via Smithery (Development Only)

npx -y @smithery/cli install @sinco-lab/mcp-youtube-transcript --client claude

Note: This method is not recommended for production use as it relies on Smithery’s proxy services.

Usage

Basic Configuration

To use with Claude Desktop / Cursor / cline, ensure your configuration matches:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "youtube-transcript": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@sinco-lab/mcp-youtube-transcript"]
    }
  }
}

Testing

With Claude App

1. Restart the Claude app after installation
2. Test with a simple command:

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJpK3YTTKZ4 Summarize this video
   

Example output:

With MCP Inspector

# Clone and setup
git clone https://github.com/sinco-lab/mcp-youtube-transcript.git
cd mcp-youtube-transcript
npm install
npm run build

# Launch inspector
npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector node "dist/index.js"

# Access http://localhost:6274 and try these commands:
# 1. List Tools: clink `List Tools`
# 2. Test get_transcripts with:
#    url: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJpK3YTTKZ4"
#    lang: "en" (optional)
#    enableParagraphs: false (optional)

Troubleshooting and Maintenance

Checking Claude Logs

To monitor Claude’s logs, you can use the following command:

tail -n 20 -f ~/Library/Logs/Claude/mcp*.log

This will display the last 20 lines of the log file and continue to show new entries as they are added.

Note: Claude app automatically prefixes MCP server log files with mcp-server-. For example, our server’s logs will be written to mcp-server-youtube-transcript.log.

Cleaning the npx Cache

If you encounter issues related to the npx cache, you can manually clean it using:

rm -rf ~/.npm/_npx

This will remove the cached packages and allow you to start fresh.

API Reference

get_transcripts

Fetches transcripts from YouTube videos.

Parameters:

• url (string, required): YouTube video URL or ID
• lang (string, optional): Language code (default: “en”)
• enableParagraphs (boolean, optional): Enable paragraph mode (default: false)

Response Format:

{
  "content": [{
    "type": "text",
    "text": "Video title and transcript content",
    "metadata": {
      "videoId": "video_id",
      "title": "video_title",
      "language": "transcript_language",
      "timestamp": "processing_time",
      "charCount": "character_count",
      "transcriptCount": "number_of_transcripts",
      "totalDuration": "total_duration",
      "paragraphsEnabled": "paragraph_mode_status"
    }
  }]
}

Development

Project Structure

├── src/
│ ├── index.ts            # Server entry point
│ ├── youtube.ts          # YouTube transcript fetching logic
├── dist/                 # Compiled output
└── package.json

Key Components

• YouTubeTranscriptFetcher: Core transcript fetching functionality
• YouTubeUtils: Text processing and utilities

Features and Capabilities

• Error Handling:

  • Invalid URLs/IDs
  • Unavailable transcripts
  • Language availability
  • Network errors
  • Rate limiting

• Text Processing:

  • HTML entity decoding
  • Punctuation normalization
  • Space normalization
  • Smart paragraph detection

Contributing

We welcome contributions! Please feel free to submit issues and pull requests.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

Related Projects

• mcp-servers
• MCP Inspector