youtube-transcript

YouTube Transcript is an MCP server that lets Claude and other MCP clients fetch transcripts for YouTube videos via a remote API. It supports multiple languages and handles a variety of YouTube URL formats, returning transcripts with robust error handling and caching to speed up repeated requests. The server is hosted on Cloudflare Workers, offering public, zero-setup access without requiring authentication. You can use the provided get_transcript tool to request transcripts by URL and optional language code.

To use it with Claude Desktop or compatible MCP clients, configure the client to point to the public server endpoint or deploy your own instance using the included tooling. The primary tool is get_transcript, which accepts a YouTube URL and an optional language code (defaulting to en). The server automatically normalizes URLs from youtube.com, youtu.be, m.youtube.com, and other YouTube domains, and it caches results for faster subsequent responses.

Prerequisites:

• Node.js installed (for local tooling and deployment scripts)
• Git installed

Installation steps:

1. Clone the repository: git clone https://github.com/ergut/youtube-transcript-mcp cd youtube-transcript-mcp

2. Install dependencies: npm install

3. Deploy (Cloudflare Workers) or run locally using the included scripts:

   • To deploy to Cloudflare Workers, follow one-click deployment in the README or run: npm run deploy
   • To run locally or develop against the MCP remote tooling, use the mcp-remote client as shown in the example: npx mcp-remote https://youtube-transcript-mcp.ergut.workers.dev/sse

Prerequisite notes:

• Ensure you have network access to Cloudflare Workers if deploying remotely.
• The public server does not require authentication.
• If you modify configuration, you can test changes against the provided SSE endpoint before re-deploying.

Tips and common considerations:

• The server caches transcripts in Cloudflare KV; normal cache invalidation is mostly automatic, but you can enable debug logging to troubleshoot using the --debug flag in your mcp-remote configuration.
• If you encounter errors like invalid URL or transcripts unavailable, verify the YouTube URL works in a browser and that the video has captions enabled.
• You can force the transport to HTTP-only or enable debug logs via additional mcp-remote options in your client configuration, as shown in the Advanced Configuration section of the README.
• The public endpoint is designed for easy access; if you need private access or rate-limited usage control, consider deploying your own instance and adjusting settings accordingly.