YouTube Transcript

You can connect your MCP clients to the YouTube Transcript MCP Server to extract YouTube transcripts, manage your transcript history, and power AI assistants with YouTube content. It combines fast caption extraction, searchable history, and full control over transcripts through a single, API-key secured endpoint.

How to use

Connect your MCP client to the YouTube Transcript MCP Server using the remote MCP URL and your API key. You gain access to a set of endpoints that let you create transcripts from YouTube videos, list and search your transcript history, fetch complete transcripts by video ID, and delete transcripts when needed. Use this to power AI assistants, chatbots, or any client that speaks the MCP protocol.

How to install

Prerequisites: Node.js installed on your machine, or a hosting environment that supports running MCP servers. You will run the server in HTTP mode, which uses your API key provided by the service.

Step 1: Obtain your API key from YouTube Transcript service dashboard. Step 2: Deploy or start the MCP server using the HTTP pairing URL shown below. Step 3: Connect your MCP clients with the provided URL and your API key in the request headers.

HTTP MCP URL: https://mcp.youtubetranscript.dev
Header: x-api-token: YOUR_API_KEY

Configuration

Server connection and authentication are configured for HTTP mode. Your API key is supplied by clients via the x-api-token header on every request. The server does not require the API key to be set as an environment variable when running in HTTP mode.

If you are deploying, you can override runtime options using environment variables for deployment specifics, such as base URL, timeouts, and port, while keeping authentication client-side.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ytscribe": {
      "url": "https://mcp.youtubetranscript.dev",
      "headers": { "x-api-token": "YOUR_API_KEY" }
    }
  }
}

Deployment notes

For production, use a hosting service that supports long-lived connections suitable for MCP, such as Cloud Run, Railway, or Fly.io. Avoid serverless environments that may impose timeouts or concurrency limits.

Security and keys

Each connection uses its own API key. There are no server-side secrets stored or shared between connections. Treat your API key like a password and rotate it if you suspect compromise.

Development

If you are developing locally, ensure you can run the HTTP server and test the MCP endpoints against the provided URL with your API key. Use your MCP client to perform end-to-end tests of transcript creation, listing, retrieval, and deletion.

Tools reference

The server provides a set of tools to manage transcripts and obtain statistics. Use these from your MCP client to perform common tasks.

Notes

This MCP server supports extracting both manual and auto captions when creating transcripts, lists transcript history, and allows fetching full transcripts by video ID or deleting transcripts as needed.

Available tools

get_stats

Returns credits left, transcripts count, plan, and rate limit information for the authenticated user.

transcribe_v2

Create or fetch a transcript using fast caption-based transcription from manual or auto captions.

list_transcripts

List transcript history for the authenticated user with optional filters and pagination.

get_transcript

Retrieve a full transcript by video_id with optional language and version details.

delete_transcript

Delete transcript records by IDs or by video_id convenience.