mcp-youtube-transcript

An MCP server that takes a YouTube video URL and returns the transcript text to your agent.

Tools

• list_transcript_languages(url) — which subtitle tracks the video has

• get_transcript(url, language) — the transcript text in the given language

language is required. If the requested language is unavailable, English is used as a fallback; if neither exists, the tool returns the list of languages the video does have so the agent can retry.

URLs are accepted in every common form: watch?v=, youtu.be/, /shorts/, /embed/, /live/, or a bare 11-character video ID.

Related MCP server: YouTube Insights MCP Server

Installation

No Python needed. The only requirement is uv — a single binary that installs without administrator rights and downloads a suitable Python for you.

Windows (PowerShell):

powershell -ExecutionPolicy ByPass -c "irm https://astral.sh/uv/install.ps1 | iex"

macOS / Linux:

curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

Then add the server to Claude Code with a single command:

claude mcp add youtube-transcript -- uvx --from git+https://github.com/gridivit/mcp-youtube-transcript mcp-youtube-transcript

For Claude Desktop, add this to claude_desktop_config.json (%APPDATA%\Claude\ on Windows, ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/ on macOS):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "youtube-transcript": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": [
        "--from",
        "git+https://github.com/gridivit/mcp-youtube-transcript",
        "mcp-youtube-transcript"
      ]
    }
  }
}

For Antigravity, use the same JSON in ~/.gemini/config/mcp_config.json (global) or .agents/mcp_config.json (per project).

The first launch takes about a minute while uv downloads Python and the dependencies. Every launch after that is instant.

Windows notes

• Escape backslashes in JSON paths: C:\\Users\\..., or just use forward slashes. A single backslash silently breaks config parsing.

• If the client cannot find uv, restart the application completely so it picks up the updated PATH. If that does not help, use the full path to the binary: C:\\Users\\<name>\\.local\\bin\\uvx.exe.

Updating

uvx caches the cloned repository and will not pick up new commits on its own. To pull the latest version:

uvx --refresh --from git+https://github.com/gridivit/mcp-youtube-transcript mcp-youtube-transcript

Development

Do not install your own checkout through uvx — it pulls the code from git, so you would not see local changes. Point the client at the working copy instead:

claude mcp add youtube-transcript-dev -- uv --directory <path-to-clone> run mcp-youtube-transcript

Run the test client to inspect the protocol directly:

npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector uv run mcp-youtube-transcript