McpServerYouTubeDemo

This MCP server is a .NET-based demonstration that accompanies the YouTube demo accompanying the Nick Chapsas video. It serves as a minimal MCP server you can run locally to explore the MCP protocol flow and integrate with a client that consumes the MCP interface. The client-side portion (ExampleClientApplication) can require an OpenAI API key if you want to experiment with AI-powered responses; if so, set the OpenAI key using the .NET user secrets mechanism as shown in the prerequisites. To use, first run the server locally so it is accessible to your MCP clients, then configure your MCP client to connect to the running server and exercise its endpoints as demonstrated by the ExampleClientApplication in the repository.

Prerequisites:

• .NET 9 SDK installed (https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/download/dotnet/9.0)
• A development environment such as VSCode or Visual Studio

Installation steps:

1. Clone the repository containing the MCP server: git clone <repository-url>
2. Navigate to the server project directory: cd McpServerYouTubeDemo
3. Restore and build the solution: dotnet restore dotnet build -c Release
4. Run the MCP server (as described below in how_to_use): dotnet run --project McpServerYouTubeDemo/McpServerYouTubeDemo.csproj -c Release
5. If you plan to use the client-side consumer, follow the README prerequisites to obtain an OpenAI API key and set it via dotnet user-secrets in the ExampleClientApplication project: cd ExampleClientApplication dotnet user-secrets set OpenAiApiKey <your-key>

Tips and notes:

• Ensure you have built the solution before adding it to VSCode as an MCP server; the MCP installation command in tutorials often uses --no-build, so a pre-build is required.
• If you encounter issues when running the MCP server inside GitHub Copilot, check the VSCode Output panel (mcp.json -> More -> Show Output) for warnings or errors.
• The client-side OpenAI key is only required if you are using the ExampleClientApplication to interact with OpenAI; otherwise the server runs without this dependency.
• The README mentions the YouTube demo; use this server to validate MCP client compatibility and basic request/response flows in a local environment.