YouTube Transcript Server

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:

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

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:

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

To enable the optional analyze_video tool, add your TwelveLabs API key:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "youtube-transcript": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@kimtaeyoon83/mcp-server-youtube-transcript"],
      "env": {
        "TWELVELABS_API_KEY": "your-twelvelabs-api-key"
      }
    }
  }
}

Ins

... View full README on GitHub