YouTube MCP Server

An MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that provides YouTube video data to AI agents like GitHub Copilot, Claude Desktop, and Cursor.

Supports both stdio (local) and Streamable HTTP (VPS/remote) transports.

Features

Related MCP server: yt-fetch

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+

No YouTube API key required! This server uses youtubei.js (YouTube's InnerTube API) for video info, comments, and search, and youtube-transcript-plus for transcripts. Both work without any API key or authentication.

Setup

# Clone and install
cd youtube-mcp
npm install

# Build
npm run build

Option 1: Local (stdio) — Default

This is the simplest setup. The MCP client spawns the server as a subprocess.

npm start

GitHub Copilot (VS Code)

Add to your VS Code settings.json:

{
  "mcp": {
    "servers": {
      "youtube": {
        "command": "node",
        "args": ["/absolute/path/to/youtube-mcp/dist/index.js"]
      }
    }
  }
}

Claude Desktop

Add to ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (macOS):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "youtube": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/youtube-mcp/dist/index.js"]
    }
  }
}

Cursor

Add to your Cursor MCP settings:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "youtube": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/youtube-mcp/dist/index.js"]
    }
  }
}

Option 2: VPS Deployment (Streamable HTTP)

For remote deployment, the server runs as a persistent HTTP service using the Streamable HTTP transport (the current MCP standard, replacing the deprecated SSE transport).

1. Deploy to your VPS

# On your VPS
git clone <your-repo-url> youtube-mcp
cd youtube-mcp
npm install
npm run build

# Create .env (optional, for HTTP mode)
cp .env.example .env
# Uncomment TRANSPORT=http, PORT, HOST as needed

2. Run with HTTP transport

# Using --http flag
node dist/index.js --http

# Or using environment variable
TRANSPORT=http PORT=3000 node dist/index.js

# Or using npm script
npm run start:http

The server will listen on http://0.0.0.0:3000/mcp.

3. Set up Nginx reverse proxy with TLS

server {
    listen 443 ssl;
    server_name mcp.yourdomain.com;

    ssl_certificate     /etc/letsencrypt/live/mcp.yourdomain.com/fullchain.pem;
    ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/mcp.yourdomain.com/privkey.pem;

    location /mcp {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:3000/mcp;
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;

        # Required for SSE streaming
        proxy_set_header Connection '';
        proxy_buffering off;
        proxy_cache off;
        chunked_transfer_encoding on;
    }
}

Get a free TLS certificate:

sudo apt install certbot python3-certbot-nginx
sudo certbot --nginx -d mcp.yourdomain.com

4. Keep it running with systemd

Create /etc/systemd/system/youtube-mcp.service:

[Unit]
Description=YouTube MCP Server
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
User=your_user
WorkingDirectory=/path/to/youtube-mcp
ExecStart=/usr/bin/node dist/index.js --http
Restart=always
RestartSec=5
Environment=TRANSPORT=http
Environment=PORT=3000
Environment=HOST=127.0.0.1

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable youtube-mcp
sudo systemctl start youtube-mcp
sudo systemctl status youtube-mcp

5. Connect MCP clients to your VPS

GitHub Copilot (VS Code) — Remote

{
  "mcp": {
    "servers": {
      "youtube": {
        "type": "http",
        "url": "https://mcp.yourdomain.com/mcp"
      }
    }
  }
}

Claude Desktop — Remote

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "youtube": {
      "type": "streamable-http",
      "url": "https://mcp.yourdomain.com/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Usage Examples

Once connected, you can ask your AI agent things like:

• "Get info about this YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ"

• "Show me the top comments on video ID abc123"

• "Get the transcript of this video in English"

• "Summarize the transcript of https://youtu.be/xyz789"

• "Search for Node.js tutorials uploaded this week, sorted by views"

• "Find the most popular React videos from the last month"

Tool Response Format

All tools return:

• content: short human-readable text for chat-style MCP clients

• structuredContent: JSON-shaped data for agents that need reliable fields

The server is intentionally JSON-first, text-second. Agents should prefer structuredContent when they need to filter, transform, or chain tool results.

Example shape from get_video_info:

{
  "content": [
    {
      "type": "text",
      "text": "📹 Example title\n\nChannel: Example channel\n..."
    }
  ],
  "structuredContent": {
    "videoId": "dQw4w9WgXcQ",
    "title": "Example title",
    "description": "Example description",
    "channelName": "Example channel",
    "channelId": "UC123",
    "uploadedAt": "1 year ago",
    "duration": "3m 33s",
    "viewCount": "123456",
    "likeCount": "7890",
    "commentCount": "456",
    "tags": ["music", "pop"],
    "thumbnailUrl": "https://..."
  }
}

Tool Details

search_youtube

• Input: query (search text), maxResults (1-50, default 10), sortBy (relevance | date | viewCount | rating), uploadDate (any | hour | today | week | month | year), videoDuration (any | short | medium | long)

• Returns: Human-readable summary in content plus structured JSON results in structuredContent

get_video_info

• Input: video (YouTube URL or video ID)

• Returns: Human-readable summary in content plus structured JSON metadata in structuredContent

get_video_comments

• Input: video (URL or ID), maxResults (1-20, default 20), sortBy (relevance or time), page (default 1)

• Returns: Human-readable summary in content plus structured JSON comment threads, pagination fields, and hasMore in structuredContent

get_video_transcript

• Input: video (URL or ID), lang (language code, default en), maxSegments (default 0 for all), startSegment (default 0)

• Returns: Human-readable transcript in content plus structured JSON segments, plain text, and pagination metadata in structuredContent

• Note: Does NOT require an API key — works via YouTube's internal caption system

get_transcript_languages

• Input: video (YouTube URL or video ID)

• Returns: Human-readable language list in content plus structured JSON language metadata in structuredContent

Rate Limits

This server uses YouTube's InnerTube API (the same API used by youtube.com). There are no official API quotas, but:

• Heavy automated usage may trigger CAPTCHAs or temporary blocks

• Use responsibly — add delays between bulk requests if needed

• All tools are free with no API key required

License

ISC