YouTube Music MCP Server (personal, single-user)

An MCP server wrapping ytmusicapi so Claude (and optionally ChatGPT) can search YouTube Music and manage playlists: create/delete, add/remove tracks, reorder tracks (top/bottom/before another track).

Scope of this setup: built for exactly one user (you), hosted on your own Ubuntu box, reachable only with a secret bearer token. Recommended to run against a secondary Google account, not your main one, since a leaked token means full playlist read/write access to whatever account is authenticated.

1. Install

pip install -r requirements.txt

Related MCP server: mcp-ytmusic

2. Auth against YouTube Music (secondary account)

Log into your secondary Gmail/YouTube account in the browser you use for this, then run:

python3 setup_auth.py

Follow the printed steps (DevTools → Network tab → copy request headers from a music.youtube.com request). This writes browser.json, which server.py reads automatically. Cookie-based auth can go stale — re-run this if tools start failing.

Paste the headers, then press Enter on one additional empty line. Firefox's structured request-header JSON export is also accepted. This project uses browser-cookie authentication only; OAuth credentials are rejected.

3. Local test (optional, before deploying)

python3 -c "from server import get_client; print(get_client().get_library_playlists(limit=5))"

4. Deploy on your Ubuntu server

4.1 Copy the project over

sudo mkdir -p /opt/ytmusic-mcp
sudo cp server.py requirements.txt /opt/ytmusic-mcp/
sudo cp browser.json /opt/ytmusic-mcp/      # the file setup_auth.py made
cd /opt/ytmusic-mcp
sudo pip install -r requirements.txt --break-system-packages

4.2 Configure

sudo cp .env.example /opt/ytmusic-mcp/.env
openssl rand -hex 32                          # generate your token
sudo nano /opt/ytmusic-mcp/.env               # paste it into MCP_BEARER_TOKEN

Leave MCP_HOST=127.0.0.1 — the app must never bind directly to the public interface. nginx is the only thing facing the internet.

4.3 Run as a systemd service

sudo cp ytmusic-mcp.service /etc/systemd/system/
sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/ytmusic-mcp.service   # set User= to your linux user
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable --now ytmusic-mcp
sudo systemctl status ytmusic-mcp
journalctl -u ytmusic-mcp -f                        # tail logs

4.4 nginx — only port 443, only path /mcp

sudo apt install nginx certbot python3-certbot-nginx
sudo cp nginx-ytmusic-mcp.conf /etc/nginx/sites-available/ytmusic-mcp
sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/ytmusic-mcp    # replace mcp.yourdomain.com
sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/ytmusic-mcp /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
sudo nginx -t && sudo systemctl reload nginx
sudo certbot --nginx -d mcp.yourdomain.com          # gets the TLS cert, edits the config

You need a domain/subdomain pointed at your server's public IP (any DNS A record works), and ports 80+443 open in your firewall. Port 80 exists only to redirect to HTTPS and serve certbot's renewal challenge — nothing else is served there.

This config makes only /mcp reachable; every other path (/, /admin, /.env, etc.) returns a bare 404 before hitting your app at all. It also rate-limits requests (30/min, burst 10) to blunt brute-force/scan traffic.

4.5 fail2ban — auto-ban repeat offenders

sudo apt install fail2ban
sudo cp fail2ban-filter-ytmusic-mcp.conf /etc/fail2ban/filter.d/ytmusic-mcp.conf
sudo cp fail2ban-jail-ytmusic-mcp.conf /etc/fail2ban/jail.d/ytmusic-mcp.conf
sudo systemctl restart fail2ban
sudo fail2ban-client status ytmusic-mcp     # confirm the jail is active

Any IP racking up 5 unauthorized/probing requests in 10 minutes gets banned for 24h.

4.6 Verify from outside

curl -i https://mcp.yourdomain.com/mcp      # expect 401 (reachable, but locked)
curl -i https://mcp.yourdomain.com/anything # expect 404 (nothing else exposed)

Your MCP endpoint: https://mcp.yourdomain.com/mcp

5. Connect from Claude.ai

1. Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector.

2. URL: https://mcp.yourdomain.com/mcp

3. Advanced settings → add header: Authorization: Bearer <your MCP_BEARER_TOKEN>

4. Save, then enable it in a conversation via + → Connectors.

6. Connect from ChatGPT

ChatGPT's remote-connector/custom-header support has been shifting between plan tiers and connector types — worth checking OpenAI's current docs for the exact click path when you get there. The server side doesn't change: it's a standard endpoint at https://mcp.yourdomain.com/mcp expecting Authorization: Bearer <token>. If their UI doesn't support custom headers for a given connector type, that combination just won't work until it does — nothing to fix on your end in that case.

Security summary

• Token is the only thing standing between the internet and your YouTube account (via browser.json) — treat it like a root password.

• App binds 127.0.0.1 only; nginx is the sole public-facing surface, and only exposes /mcp on :443.

• Rate limiting + fail2ban blunt scanning/brute-force attempts.

• Using a secondary Google account caps the blast radius of a leak to that account's playlists, not your main one.

• Rotate the token any time you suspect exposure: regenerate, update .env, sudo systemctl restart ytmusic-mcp.

• browser.json can expire — re-run setup_auth.py (on your dev machine, then re-copy to the server) if calls start failing with auth errors.

Tools exposed

ID note: videoId identifies a song (used to add); setVideoId identifies one occurrence of a track inside a playlist (used to remove or reorder, since the same song can appear twice with different setVideoIds). You never need to look these up manually — ask by song name and the assistant calls get_playlist first to resolve the right ID.