kimtaeyoon83/mcp-server-youtube-transcript

A Model Context Protocol server that enables retrieval of transcripts from YouTube videos. This server provides direct access to video captions and subtitles through a simple interface.
Installing via Smithery
To install YouTube Transcript Server for Claude Desktop automatically via Smithery:
Components
Tools
- **get_transcript**
- Extract transcripts from YouTube videos
- Inputs:
- url (string, required): YouTube video URL, Shorts URL, or video ID
- lang (string, optional, default: "en"): Language code for transcript (e.g., 'ko', 'en'). Automatically falls back to available languages if requested language is not found.
- include_timestamps (boolean, optional, default: false): Include timestamps in output (e.g., '[0:05] text')
- strip_ads (boolean, optional, default: true): Filter out sponsorships, ads, and promotional content from transcript based on chapter markers
- **analyze_video** (optional, requires a TwelveLabs API key)
- Analyze a video with TwelveLabs Pegasus, a video-understanding model. Unlike get_transcript, this reasons over what is *shown* on screen, so it produces useful summaries and answers even for videos with little or no speech (demos, gameplay, b-roll, music videos).
- Inputs:
- url (string, required): A publicly reachable **direct video URL** (e.g. an .mp4/.mov/.webm link or a pre-signed URL). TwelveLabs fetches the file server-side, so a YouTube watch page URL will not work — it serves HTML, not a raw video stream.
- prompt (string, optional): Instruction or question for the model (e.g. "Summarize this video in 3 sentences" or "What products are shown?"). Defaults to a general summary.
- model (string, optional, default: "pegasus1.2"): Pegasus model to use ("pegasus1.2" or "pegasus1.5").
- max_tokens (number, optional, default: 2048): Maximum response length in tokens.
- Requires the TWELVELABS_API_KEY environment variable. The transcript tool works without it; analysis is fully opt-in. Grab a free key at twelvelabs.io — there's a generous free tier.
Key Features
- Support for multiple video URL formats (including YouTube Shorts)
- Language-specific transcript retrieval with automatic fallback
- Optional timestamps for referencing specific moments
- Built-in ad/sponsorship filtering (enabled by default)
- Zero external dependencies for transcript fetching
- Detailed metadata in responses
Configuration
To use with Claude Desktop, add this server configuration:
To enable the optional analyze_video tool, add your TwelveLabs API key:
Install via tool
mcp-get A command-line tool for installing and managing Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers.
Awesome-mcp-servers
awesome-mcp-servers A curated list of awesome Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers.
Development
Prerequisites
- Node.js 18 or higher
- npm or yarn
Setup
Install dependencies:
Build the server:
For development with auto-rebuild:
Testing