📌Overview

Purpose: To enable easy retrieval of transcripts from YouTube videos through a simple interface.

Overview: The YouTube Transcript Server is a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that facilitates access to video captions and subtitles from YouTube. It is designed to streamline the process of extracting transcripts, making it user-friendly for various applications.

Key Features:

Support for multiple video URL formats: Allows extraction of transcripts from various formats of YouTube video URLs, enhancing usability.
Language-specific transcript retrieval: Users can request transcripts in different languages, accommodating a diverse audience.
Detailed metadata in responses: Provides additional context and information in the output, improving the user experience.

YouTube Transcript Server

A Model Context Protocol server that enables retrieval of transcripts from YouTube videos, providing direct access to video captions and subtitles through a simple interface.

Installation

Via Smithery

To install YouTube Transcript Server for Claude Desktop:

npx -y @smithery/cli install @kimtaeyoon83/mcp-server-youtube-transcript --client claude

Components

Tools

get_transcript: Extracts transcripts from YouTube videos.
- Inputs:
  - url (string, required): YouTube video URL or video ID
  - lang (string, optional, default: "en"): Language code for transcript (e.g., 'ko', 'en')

Configuration

To use with Claude Desktop, add the following server configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "youtube-transcript": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@kimtaeyoon83/mcp-server-youtube-transcript"]
    }
  }
}

Installation via Tool

Use mcp-get to install:

npx @michaellatman/mcp-get@latest install @kimtaeyoon83/mcp-server-youtube-transcript

Development

Prerequisites

Node.js 18 or higher
npm or yarn

Setup Steps

Install dependencies:
```
npm install
```
Build the server:
```
npm run build
```
For development with auto-rebuild:
```
npm run watch
```

Testing

To run tests:

npm test

Debugging

Use the MCP Inspector for development:

npm run inspector

Error Handling

The server implements robust error handling for:

Invalid video URLs or IDs
Unavailable transcripts
Language availability issues
Network errors

Usage Examples

Get transcript by video URL:

await server.callTool("get_transcript", {
  url: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID",
  lang: "en"
});

Get transcript by video ID:

await server.callTool("get_transcript", {
  url: "VIDEO_ID",
  lang: "ko"
});

Security Considerations

The server:

Validates all input parameters
Handles YouTube API errors gracefully
Implements timeouts for transcript retrieval
Provides detailed error messages for troubleshooting

License

This MCP server is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.