YouTube Transcript MCP Server

A high-performance, serverless implementation of a YouTube transcript extraction service using the Model Context Protocol (MCP), deployed on Cloudflare Workers.

Overview

This MCP server enables AI assistants to retrieve transcripts from YouTube videos through a simple API. The implementation combines the lightweight transcript extraction capabilities seen in kimtaeyoon83/mcp-server-youtube-transcript with the remote MCP server architecture from Cloudflare AI demos.

Features

• Serverless Deployment: Runs on Cloudflare's global edge network for minimal latency

• YouTube URL Flexibility: Supports multiple URL formats and direct video IDs

• Language Selection: Retrieve transcripts in different languages (defaults to English)

• Edge-optimized: Ultra-fast response times (typically 400-800ms)

• Minimal Implementation: Less than 300 lines of code for easy maintenance

• SSE Transport: Implements Server-Sent Events for streaming connections

Available Tools

Usage with Claude Desktop

Installation

1. Open Claude Desktop and go to Settings > Developer > Edit Config

2. Update your configuration file:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "youtube-transcript": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "mcp-remote",
        "https://your-deployed-worker.workers.dev/sse"
      ]
    }
  }
}

3. Restart Claude Desktop

Example Prompts

Can you show me the transcript of this YouTube video? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

Extract the transcripts from this TED talk and summarize the key points: https://youtu.be/8S0FDjFBj8o

Local Development

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18 or higher

• Wrangler CLI (npm install -g wrangler)

Setup

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/yourusername/youtube-transcript-mcp-server.git
cd youtube-transcript-mcp-server

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Run locally
wrangler dev

Testing with MCP Inspector

1. Install the MCP Inspector:

   npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector

2. In the inspector:

   • Set Transport Type to SSE

   • Enter http://localhost:8787/sse as the URL

   • Click "Connect"

3. Try out the get_transcript tool with different YouTube URLs

Deployment to Cloudflare

# Deploy to Cloudflare Workers
wrangler deploy

Technical Implementation

The server is built with a minimal, high-efficiency codebase:

• YouTubeTranscriptMCPSqlite: Core MCP agent implementation with transcript extraction capabilities

• McpServer: Handles MCP protocol interactions

• MCP Protocol Integration: Complete implementation of the Model Context Protocol

Key optimizations:

1. Efficient URL parsing and validation

2. Minimal external dependencies

3. Proper error handling with detailed error messages

4. Streaming support through SSE

Credits

• Built with @modelcontextprotocol/sdk

• Uses youtube-captions-scraper for transcript extraction

• Inspired by:

  • kimtaeyoon83/mcp-server-youtube-transcript

  • Cloudflare AI Remote MCP Server demo

License

MIT