transcriptapi-mcp — YouTube transcript MCP server

Give Claude, Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf or any Model Context Protocol client the transcript of any YouTube video — plus YouTube search, channel and playlist listings. Backed by TranscriptAPI, so it keeps working when YouTube blocks datacenter IPs.

npx -y transcriptapi-mcp

One env var: TRANSCRIPTAPI_KEY. Get a free key (20 credits, no card) at https://transcriptapi.io/login.

Full guide with per-client setup: https://transcriptapi.io/mcp

Tools

| Tool | What it does | Credits | |---|---|---| | get_youtube_transcript | Transcript of a video as timestamped text, plain text, SRT, VTT or JSON. Accepts any YouTube URL or id. Optional AI translation. | 1 (cached repeats: 0; translation extra) | | search_youtube | Search YouTube by keyword — ids, titles, channel, duration, views. | 1 | | get_channel_videos | Latest uploads of a channel (id, @handle or URL). | 1 | | search_channel_videos | Keyword search inside one channel. | 1 | | get_playlist_videos | Videos of a playlist in order. | 1 |

Plus one prompt, summarize_youtube_video, that fetches a transcript and asks for a timestamped summary.

Failures that are the video's fault (captions off, private, deleted, age-restricted) come back as a plain-language error with retryable: false, and the credit is refunded automatically.

Setup

Claude Desktop

claude_desktop_config.json → Settings → Developer → Edit Config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "transcriptapi": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "transcriptapi-mcp"],
      "env": { "TRANSCRIPTAPI_KEY": "ta_your_key" }
    }
  }
}

Claude Code

claude mcp add transcriptapi -e TRANSCRIPTAPI_KEY=ta_your_key -- npx -y transcriptapi-mcp

Cursor

.cursor/mcp.json (project) or ~/.cursor/mcp.json (global):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "transcriptapi": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "transcriptapi-mcp"],
      "env": { "TRANSCRIPTAPI_KEY": "ta_your_key" }
    }
  }
}

VS Code (Copilot agent mode)

.vscode/mcp.json:

{
  "servers": {
    "transcriptapi": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "transcriptapi-mcp"],
      "env": { "TRANSCRIPTAPI_KEY": "ta_your_key" }
    }
  }
}

Windsurf

~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json — same shape as Claude Desktop.

Anything else

It is a standard stdio MCP server: run npx -y transcriptapi-mcp with TRANSCRIPTAPI_KEY in the environment.

Configuration

| Variable | Required | Default | |---|---|---| | TRANSCRIPTAPI_KEY | yes | — | | TRANSCRIPTAPI_BASE_URL | no | https://api.transcriptapi.io |

Things to ask

• "Summarize https://youtu.be/… in five bullet points with timestamps."
• "What does this video say about pricing? Quote it."
• "Find the three most-watched videos on @veritasium about entropy and tell me which one to watch first."
• "List the last 10 uploads of this channel and get me the transcript of the newest one."
• "Turn this video into an SRT file in German."

Development

npm install
npm run build
node scripts/smoke.mjs list                       # tools/list over stdio
TRANSCRIPTAPI_KEY=ta_… node scripts/smoke.mjs call search_youtube '{"query":"mcp"}'
npm run inspect                                   # MCP Inspector UI

MIT © TranscriptAPI · Questions: https://discord.gg/gvAwUZQCfX