YouTube

You can query and analyze YouTube data through a dedicated MCP server that exposes YouTube videos, channels, comments, and transcripts via MCP endpoints. This server lets you search, retrieve details, compare statistics, discover trends, and generate analyses all through an MCP client.

How to use

You interact with the YouTube MCP Server using an MCP client to send requests to the /mcp endpoint. Start the server, then connect your MCP client to http://localhost:3000/mcp when you run in HTTP transport mode. Use the available tools to search for videos, fetch video or channel information, retrieve transcripts and comments, or generate analyses and summaries from transcripts.

How to install

Prerequisites: you need Node.js (v16+) and a YouTube Data API key.

# Install via Smithery (optional)
npx -y @smithery/cli install @coyaSONG/youtube-mcp-server --client claude

# Manual installation
# 1) Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/coyaSONG/youtube-mcp-server.git
cd youtube-mcp-server

# 2) Install dependencies
npm install

# 3) Create environment file
# - Put your YouTube Data API key here
# - Set the port you want to listen on (optional)
echo "YOUTUBE_API_KEY=your_youtube_api_key_here
PORT=3000" > .env

# 4) Build and run
npm run build
npm start

Additional setup and notes

The server has migrated to a modern Streamable HTTP transport and runs on an HTTP API at /mcp. To test locally, start the server and connect an MCP inspector to http://localhost:3000/mcp. You can also run in development mode with the dev script.

Environment variables shown include YOUTUBE_API_KEY for API access and PORT to control the listening port. Create a .env file in the project root and place these values there.

Usage notes and capabilities

Key resources you can access through the server include YouTube videos, channels, transcripts, and comments. You can retrieve detailed video information, obtain transcripts in a specific language, fetch comments, and perform advanced searches with filtering. You can also compare video statistics, discover trending videos by region and category, and generate transcript-based analyses and summaries.

Prominent tools you can invoke include search-videos, get-video-comments, get-video-transcript, enhanced-transcript, get-key-moments, get-segmented-transcript, get-video-stats, get-channel-stats, compare-videos, get-trending-videos, get-video-categories, and analyze-channel-videos. Each tool performs a specific YouTube data operation or analysis task.

Available tools

search-videos

Search YouTube videos with advanced filtering options such as query, filters, and region/category parameters.

get-video-comments

Retrieve comments for a specific video by videoId.

get-video-transcript

Fetch the transcript for a specific video, with an optional language parameter.

enhanced-transcript

Advanced transcript extraction with filtering, search, and multi-video capabilities.

get-key-moments

Extract key moments with timestamps from a video transcript for quick navigation.

get-segmented-transcript

Divide a video transcript into segments to simplify analysis.

get-video-stats

Get statistical information for a specific video, such as views and likes.

get-channel-stats

Retrieve channel statistics like subscriber count and total views.

compare-videos

Compare statistics across multiple videos to identify performance differences.

get-trending-videos

Retrieve trending videos by region and category to discover popular content.

get-video-categories

Get available video categories for a specific region.

analyze-channel-videos

Analyze performance trends for videos from a specific channel.