youtube

This MCP server exposes YouTube data to Claude and other compatible assistants by providing a set of structured tools that wrap common YouTube Data API v3 operations. The available tools include searching for videos, retrieving details about a specific video, searching for channels, and getting details about a channel. You can access these capabilities through natural language prompts or explicit tool calls, enabling real-time lookup of content, metadata, and channel information directly within conversations. The server expects a YouTube API key for authentication and responds with data formatted for easy integration into downstream workflows.

To use with Claude Desktop (or other MCP-enabled assistants), point your MCP client at the configured server and invoke the tools by name (e.g., search_videos, get_video_details, search_channels, get_channel_details). Each tool accepts parameters as described in the available tools section. Ensure that the environment variable YOUTUBE_API_KEY is set either in the server environment or in your client configuration when connecting to Claude Desktop so requests to YouTube are authenticated.

Prerequisites:

• Node.js v16 or higher
• npm (comes with Node.js)
• A YouTube Data API v3 key

Installation steps:

1. Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/Nocodeboy/youtube-mcp-server.git
cd youtube-mcp-server

2. Install dependencies:

npm install

3. Create a .env file in the project root and add your YouTube API key:

YOUTUBE_API_KEY=your_api_key_here

4. Start the server:

npm start

5. Verify the server is running (it should begin listening on the configured port, typically 3000 or as set in the code).

Note: If you deploy in a different environment, ensure Node.js version compatibility and that the YouTube API key has the YouTube Data API v3 enabled in your Google Cloud project.

Tips and common considerations:

• Keep your YouTube API key secure; avoid sharing it in client configurations. Use environment variables where possible.
• If you encounter API quota issues, review YouTube Data API quotas in the Google Cloud Console and consider applying for higher quotas if needed.
• When integrating with Claude Desktop, ensure the path to the server script in the configuration is correct and that the environment variables are properly exposed to the runtime.
• The server exposes common actions as tools; in prompts, reference them by their tool names (e.g., search_videos, get_video_details, search_channels, get_channel_details).
• For channel or video lookups, provide IDs (channelId or videoId) precisely to avoid ambiguous results.
• If you need to extend functionality, you can add more wrapper endpoints that call other YouTube Data API v3 resources (e.g., playlists, subscriptions) following the same pattern.