YouTube Research MCP Server

An MCP server for YouTube integration with Claude Code — search videos, get metadata, fetch transcripts, explore channels, and more.

Tools

YouTube Data API v3 free quota: 10,000 units/day. youtube_search is the most expensive at ~101 units per call.

Setup

1. Get a YouTube API Key

1. Go to Google Cloud Console

2. Create a project (or select an existing one)

3. Navigate to APIs & Services → Library

4. Find and enable YouTube Data API v3

5. Go to APIs & Services → Credentials

6. Click Create Credentials → API Key

7. Copy the key

2. Install Dependencies

cd /path/to/youtube_research
uv sync

3. Configure Claude Code

Copy the example config and add your API key:

cp .mcp.json.example ~/.claude/.mcp.json

Edit ~/.claude/.mcp.json — replace /path/to/youtube_research and YOUR_API_KEY_HERE with actual values.

Important: .mcp.json contains your API key — do not commit it to git.

Alternatively, place .mcp.json in the project root — the server will only be available when working from that directory.

4. Restart

Restart Claude Code — all 8 tools will become available.

Remote Access (SSE)

To use with Claude.ai web chat or other remote MCP clients, run the server in SSE mode on a VPS:

YOUTUBE_API_KEY=your_key uv run server.py --sse --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8000

Options:

• --sse — enable SSE transport (default is stdio)

• --host — bind address (default: 127.0.0.1 — use 0.0.0.0 to expose externally)

• --port — port number (default: 8000)

The server will be available at http://your-vps:8000/sse.

Security: The SSE endpoint has no built-in authentication. For public deployment, use a reverse proxy (nginx) with token-based auth in front of it.

Usage Examples

In Claude Code:

• "Find videos about Python asyncio" → youtube_search

• "Show info for https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ" → youtube_video_info

• "Get subtitles for this video" → youtube_transcript

• "How many subscribers does @lexfridman have?" → youtube_channel_info

• "Show latest videos from @ThePrimeagen" → youtube_channel_videos

• "List videos in this playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=..." → youtube_playlist

• "What are people saying about this video?" → youtube_comments

• "What's trending in Japan?" → youtube_trending

License

MIT