yt-playlist-organizer-mcp

An MCP server for organizing YouTube playlists via the YouTube Data API v3.

It does exactly one thing and nothing more: create, list, update, and delete playlists and their playlist items. It does not touch videos, channels, captions, comments, subscriptions, or any other YouTube Data API resource.

Built with the official @modelcontextprotocol/sdk and the YouTube Data API v3 REST endpoints (no heavy googleapis dependency).

Tools

Everything this server does. There are no other tools.

Playlists (/playlists)

PlaylistItems (/playlistItems)

Plus auth_status to check which credentials are configured.

Related MCP server: youtube-mcp

Configuration

This server only ever calls the /playlists and /playlistItems endpoints. The rest of the YouTube Data API is out of scope.

The server reads two environment variables:

See .env.example.

• Reads (..._list) work with just an API key (or an access token).

• Writes (insert/update/delete) and mine=true require an OAuth2 access token with the scopes youtube, youtube.force-ssl, or youtubepartner.

Getting OAuth2 credentials

1. Create a project in Google Cloud Console.

2. Enable the YouTube Data API v3.

3. Create an OAuth2 client ID (Desktop app) and download the JSON.

4. Exchange credentials for an access token (e.g. via google-auth-oauthlib on Python, or a local OAuth flow service). Set YOUTUBE_ACCESS_TOKEN=<token>.

5. (Optional) Create an API key for simpler read-only use.

Nix

This is NixOS-friendly. Both a flake and a shell.nix are provided.

# Enter the dev shell (node + typescript toolchain)
nix develop

# or, non-flake:
nix-shell

Build

npm install        # install node deps (zod + MCP SDK)
npm run build      # emits dist/
npm run typecheck  # tsc --noEmit

Run locally

# Reads only (API key):
YOUTUBE_API_KEY=... node dist/index.js

# Reads + writes/mine (OAuth access token):
YOUTUBE_ACCESS_TOKEN=... node dist/index.js

Wiring into opencode

Add the following to ~/.config/opencode/opencode.jsonc under mcp:

"mcp": {
  "yt-playlist-organizer-mcp": {
    "type": "local",
    "command": ["node", "<path-to-repo>/dist/index.js"],
    "enabled": true,
    "environment": {
      "YOUTUBE_API_KEY": "{file:~/.secrets/yt-api-key}",
      "YOUTUBE_ACCESS_TOKEN": "{file:~/.secrets/yt-access-token}"
    }
  }
}

Replace <path-to-repo> with the absolute path where you cloned it, or install it via npm to run it by name:

npm install -g .
# then use:  "command": ["yt-playlist-organizer-mcp"]

To run it through the Nix shell instead, use the same key but change command:

"command": ["nix", "develop", "<path-to-repo>", "--command", "node", "dist/index.js"],

Notes

• Quota costs are per the official API docs and documented per tool.

• part values are validated against the valid sets for each resource.

• playlists_list / playlistItems_list require exactly one filter parameter; otherwise input validation rejects the call.

• Update tools (playlists_update, playlistItems_update) read the existing resource first and preserve any omitted fields (e.g. description, privacyStatus, position, contentDetails), rather than clearing them. Each update therefore costs an extra read against your quota.

• startAt/endAt are provided in seconds and converted to ISO 8601 durations (PT1M30S) before being sent to the API.

• This server cannot handle the default "Watch Later" playlist (WL). It is a constant (not a real playlist ID) in the public YouTube API, and there is no supported way to modify it via the API. See Stack Overflow for details.

Development

npm install
npm test         # vitest unit tests
npm run typecheck
npm run build

License

MIT