Taibai MCP Server

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for accessing Dedao (得到) learning platform content via dedao-dl.

Features

• 🎓 Download course transcripts with individual lessons and hot comments

• 📚 Access your purchased Dedao courses library

• 📝 Export content as Markdown, PDF, or MP3

• 🔗 Seamless Obsidian vault integration

• 🔄 Automatic version detection and update notifications

Related MCP server: Obsidian MCP Server

Prerequisites

1. dedao-dl - The Go-based Dedao downloader

   go install github.com/yann0917/dedao-dl@latest

2. Python 3.10+ with uv (recommended) or pip

Installation

Using uv (Recommended)

# Install uv if you haven't already
curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/terry-li-hm/taibai.git
cd taibai

# Install dependencies
uv pip install -e .

# For development
uv pip install -e ".[dev]"

Using pip

# Clone and install
git clone https://github.com/yourusername/taibai.git
cd taibai
pip install -e .

Configuration

1. Set up environment variables

Create a .env file or export:

# Optional: Specify where to download content (defaults to current directory)
export DEDAO_DOWNLOAD_DIR="/path/to/your/obsidian/vault/Dedao/Courses"

2. Configure Claude Desktop

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

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "taibai": {
      "command": "python",
      "args": ["/path/to/taibai/server.py"],
      "env": {
        "DEDAO_DOWNLOAD_DIR": "/path/to/your/obsidian/vault/Dedao/Courses"
      }
    }
  }
}

3. Authenticate with Dedao

First time setup - login via QR code:

# In Claude, use the MCP tool:
dedao_login(qrcode=True)

Usage

Available MCP Tools

• dedao_version - Check dedao-dl version and update availability

• dedao_login - Authenticate with Dedao platform

• dedao_list_courses - List all purchased courses

• dedao_course_details - Get course information

• dedao_download_course - Download course content

• dedao_article_details - Get article information

• dedao_download_article - Download articles

Example Usage in Claude

# Check dedao-dl version
dedao_version()

# List your courses
dedao_list_courses()

# Download a specific course as markdown
dedao_download_course(
    course_id="743",
    format="markdown"
)

# Get course details
dedao_course_details(course_id="743")

Development

Code Quality

# Format code
ruff format .

# Lint code  
ruff check .

# Run tests
pytest

Project Structure

taibai/
├── server.py           # Main MCP server implementation
├── pyproject.toml      # Project configuration and dependencies
├── README.md           # Documentation
└── .env.example        # Environment variables template

Output Format

Downloaded courses include:

• Individual lesson files - Each lesson as a separate markdown file

• Hot comments - Community insights and discussions

• Clean filenames - No timestamp prefixes

• Obsidian-ready - Markdown formatted for knowledge graphs

Troubleshooting

Authentication Issues

• Ensure dedao-dl is authenticated: dedao-dl who

• Re-login if needed: Use dedao_login(qrcode=True)

Download Location

• Default: ~/.taibai/output/ then moved to vault

• Override with DEDAO_DOWNLOAD_DIR environment variable

Missing dedao-dl

# Install dedao-dl first
go install github.com/yann0917/dedao-dl@latest

# Verify installation
dedao-dl --version

License

MIT

Contributing

Pull requests welcome! Please:

1. Use ruff for formatting

2. Add tests for new features

3. Update documentation

Credits

Built on top of dedao-dl by yann0917.