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README

YouTube Transcript Server

A Model Context Protocol server that enables retrieval of transcripts from YouTube videos. This server provides direct access to video captions and subtitles through a simple interface.

Installing via Smithery

To install YouTube Transcript Server for Claude Desktop automatically via Smithery:

npx -y @smithery/cli install @kimtaeyoon83/mcp-server-youtube-transcript --client claude

Components

Tools

get_transcript
- Extract transcripts from YouTube videos
- Inputs:
  - url (string, required): YouTube video URL or video ID
  - lang (string, optional, default: "en"): Language code for transcript (e.g., 'ko', 'en')

Key Features

Support for multiple video URL formats
Language-specific transcript retrieval
Detailed metadata in responses

Configuration

To use with Claude Desktop, add this server configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "youtube-transcript": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@kimtaeyoon83/mcp-server-youtube-transcript"]
    }
  }
}

Install via tool

mcp-get A command-line tool for installing and managing Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers.

npx @michaellatman/mcp-get@latest install @kimtaeyoon83/mcp-server-youtube-transcript

Awesome-mcp-servers

awesome-mcp-servers A curated list of awesome Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers.

Development

Prerequisites

Node.js 18 or higher
npm or yarn

Setup

Install dependencies:

npm install

Build the server:

npm run build

For development with auto-rebuild:

npm run watch

Testing

npm test

Debugging

Since MCP servers communicate over stdio, debugging can be challenging. We recommend using the MCP Inspector for development:

npm run inspector

Running evals

The evals package loads an mcp client that then runs the index.ts file, so there is no need to rebuild between tests. You can load environment variables by prefixing the npx command. Full documentation can be found here.

OPENAI_API_KEY=your-key  npx mcp-eval src/evals/evals.ts src/index.ts

Error Handling

The server implements robust error handling for common scenarios:

Invalid video URLs or IDs
Unavailable transcripts
Language availability issues
Network errors

Usage Examples

Get transcript by video URL:

await server.callTool("get_transcript", {
  url: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID",
  lang: "en"
});

Get transcript by video ID:

await server.callTool("get_transcript", {
  url: "VIDEO_ID",
  lang: "ko"
});

How to Extract YouTube Subtitles in Claude Desktop App

chat: https://youtu.be/ODaHJzOyVCQ?si=aXkJgso96Deri0aB Extract subtitles

Security Considerations

The server:

Validates all input parameters
Handles YouTube API errors gracefully
Implements timeouts for transcript retrieval
Provides detailed error messages for troubleshooting

License

This MCP server is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.

mcp-server-youtube-transcript