youtube-personal-feed

An MCP (Model Context Protocol) server and CLI that connects to your personal YouTube account and exposes your subscription feed to AI assistants.

Fetch subscribed channels, list recent uploads across your feed, query specific channel uploads, access playlists (including Liked Videos), and get https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= links ready for transcript tools.

Quick Start

1. Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+

• A Google Account with YouTube Data API v3 enabled in Google Cloud Console.

2. Google Cloud Setup (One-Time)

1. Go to Google Cloud Console.

2. Enable YouTube Data API v3 (APIs & Services -> Library).

3. Configure OAuth consent screen (APIs & Services -> OAuth consent screen):

   • Set User Type to External and add your Gmail address under Test users.

   • Add scope: https://www.googleapis.com/auth/youtube.readonly.

4. Create Desktop App credentials (APIs & Services -> Credentials -> Create Credentials -> OAuth client ID).

5. Save your credentials to ~/.config/youtube-personal-mcp/.env (or .env in the project root):

   CLIENT_ID=your-client-id.apps.googleusercontent.com
   CLIENT_SECRET=your-client-secret

3. Install & Authenticate

# Install globally
npm install -g youtube-personal-feed

# Authenticate once (opens browser to log in)
youtube-personal-feed-auth

Tokens are stored securely at ~/.config/youtube-personal-mcp/token.json.

Related MCP server: YouTube MCP Server

MCP Setup

Add the MCP server to your assistant configuration:

Claude Desktop

Add to claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "youtube-personal-feed": {
      "command": "youtube-personal-feed-mcp"
    }
  }
}

OpenCode

Add to your OpenCode MCP settings:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "youtube-personal-feed": {
      "command": "youtube-personal-feed-mcp"
    }
  }
}

For local source development, use npx tsx src/index.ts with cwd set to the repository.

Available MCP Tools

Feed items include standard videoUrl (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=...) for easy integration with transcript MCP servers.

CLI Usage

You can also run commands directly from the terminal (outputs JSON):

# List subscriptions
youtube-personal-feed subscriptions --query tech --limit 20

# Get recent feed (past 7 days)
youtube-personal-feed feed --limit 10 --since-days 7

# Get uploads for a specific channel
youtube-personal-feed uploads UCJaGVXG4KgOUXUtcmAHAOdA --limit 15

# Get liked videos
youtube-personal-feed liked --limit 10

# Get items from any playlist ID
youtube-personal-feed playlist PL1AA5273CEB50EB18 --limit 10

# View video details
youtube-personal-feed video 64wtzsSQx84

For local development from source, use npm run cli -- <command>.

Quota & Caching

• YouTube Data API daily limit: 10,000 units/day.

• Subscriptions are cached for 30 minutes; channel uploads are cached for 10 minutes.

• Uploads are fetched efficiently via channel upload playlists (1 unit/request).

Development

npm run typecheck   # Type check TypeScript
npm run lint        # Lint and check formatting
npm run format      # Format code with Biome
npm run build       # Build dist/
npm run smoke       # Smoke test API operations