YouTube Data MCP

The YouTube Data MCP acts as a smart bridge between AI models and the vast library of content on YouTube. In simple terms, it gives an AI assistant the ability to search for videos, read through transcripts, and look up information about its favorite creators. By providing these capabilities, the server transforms a standard language model into a specialized video research assistant that can analyze real-time trends and summarize video content without needing a human to copy and paste links. For developers and AI power users, this tool is specifically engineered with "token efficiency" at its core. Since Large Language Models charge based on the amount of data they process, this server returns highly structured, "lean" data packets that strip away unnecessary fluff. This design ensures that the AI receives only the most relevant metadata, engagement ratios, and caption segments, which significantly reduces operational costs and improves the speed of the model's responses. It handles complex tasks like multi-language transcript fetching and sentiment-friendly comment retrieval with ease. On a more technical level, the server offers a robust suite of professional tools, including the ability to identify consistent outlier channels within specific niches and discover trending content by region or category. It is built using Zod for rigorous input validation and provides clear error handling to maintain reliability in production environments. Additionally, it features optional MongoDB integration, allowing developers to cache API responses to significantly boost performance and stay within YouTube’s API quota limits. This makes it a comprehensive, high-performance solution for any application requiring deep YouTube data integration.

Category: Databases & Data Stores

Tags: metadata, mongodb, transcripts, video, youtube

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How to install and configure YouTube Data MCP

1. Installation To use the YouTube Data MCP server, you must have Node.js (v20.0.0 or higher) and an npm environment installed. Prerequisites: 1. YouTube Data API v3 Key: Obtain this via the Google Cloud Console. Enable the "YouTube Data API v3" and create an API key. 2. MongoDB Connection String (Optional): Used for caching and storing analysis data. If omitted, the server runs without a database with reduced performance. Note: The server uses a hardcoded database name: youtube_niche_analysis.

2. Configuration Add the following configuration to your MCP client settings file (e.g., claude_desktop_config.json):

Standard Configuration json { "mcpServers": { "youtube": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "@kirbah/mcp-youtube"], "env": { "YOUTUBE_API_KEY": "YOUR_YOUTUBE_API_KEY_HERE", "MDB_MCP_CONNECTION_STRING": "mongodb+srv://user:pass@cluster0.abc.mongodb.net/youtube_niche_analysis" } } } }

Windows PowerShell Users If you encounter issues with npx on Windows, use the following command structure: json { "mcpServers": { "youtube": { "command": "cmd", "args": ["/k", "npx", "-y", "@kirbah/mcp-youtube"], "env": { "YOUTUBE_API_KEY": "YOUR_YOUTUBE_API_KEY_HERE", "MDB_MCP_CONNECTION_STRING": "mongodb+srv://user:pass@cluster0.abc.mongodb.net/youtube_niche_analysis" } } } }

3. Available Tools | Tool Name | Description | Key Parameters | | --- | --- | --- | | getVideoDetails | Retrieves lean metadata, stats, and engagement for videos. | videoIds (array of strings) | | searchVideos | Searches for videos or channels with filters. | query, maxResults, order, type, channelId | | getTranscripts | Fetches token-efficient captions (full text or key segments). | videoIds, lang, format ('full_text' or 'key_segments') | | getChannelStatistics | Lean stats (subscribers, views, video count). | channelIds (array of strings) | | getChannelTopVideos | Lists a channel's best-performing videos. | channelId, maxResults | | getTrendingVideos | Lists trending videos by region and category. | regionCode, categoryId, maxResults | | getVideoCategories | Retrieves valid YouTube category IDs for a region. | regionCode | | getVideoComments | Fetches comments for sentiment analysis or feedback. | videoId, maxResults, order, maxReplies | | findConsistentOutlierChannels | Identifies high-performing niche channels (Requires MongoDB). | niche, minVideos, maxChannels |

4. Example Prompts While specific prompt strings are not provided in the documentation, the server is designed for the following AI-driven tasks: * Video Summarization: "Get the transcript for video ID [ID] and summarize the key points." * Market Research: "Find trending videos in the 'Technology' category for region 'US' and analyze their engagement ratios." * Sentiment Analysis: "Fetch the latest 50 comments for video [ID] and tell me what users are complaining about." * Competitor Analysis: "Get the channel statistics and top 10 videos for channel [ID]."

What you can do with YouTube Data MCP

Use Case 1: Automated Video Content Summarization and Repurposing Problem: Content creators and researchers often spend hours watching long-form YouTube videos to extract key information or to repurpose that content into blog posts, social media threads, or newsletters. Solution: This MCP allows an LLM to directly pull "token-optimized" transcripts and video metadata. Because the data is structured specifically for AI, the LLM can process multiple long transcripts without hitting context limits as quickly as it would with raw, unoptimized data. Example: A user provides a URL for a 40-minute technical tutorial. The LLM uses getTranscripts (fetching the full_text format) and getVideoDetails, then instantly generates a structured summary with time-coded key takeaways and a draft LinkedIn post.

Use Case 2: YouTube Niche Discovery and Outlier Analysis Problem: New YouTubers or marketing agencies struggle to identify "breakout" niches where small channels are getting disproportionately high views, which usually indicates a high-demand, low-supply content opportunity. Solution: The MCP provides a specialized tool, findConsistentOutlierChannels, and getChannelTopVideos. These tools allow an LLM to scan a specific niche and find channels that consistently perform better than their subscriber count would suggest. Example: A user asks, "Find me 5 outlier channels in the 'mechanical keyboard' niche that have under 10k subscribers but videos with over 50k views." The LLM uses the outlier tool to scan the niche and then analyzes the getChannelTopVideos data to explain why those specific videos were successful.

Use Case 3: Automated Brand Sentiment and Feedback Analysis Problem: Brands launching products on YouTube need to understand audience reception. Manually reading through thousands of comments across multiple videos to identify common complaints or feature requests is inefficient. Solution: Using the getVideoComments tool, an LLM can fetch a large volume of comments and their replies in a lean, structured format. The AI can then perform sentiment analysis and categorize the feedback into actionable buckets. Example: A company pulls comments from their latest product launch video. The LLM processes the data and reports: "70% positive sentiment; 15% of users are asking about USB-C compatibility; 5% reported a bug in the setup process shown at 04:30."

Use Case 4: Competitive Intelligence and Performance Benchmarking Problem: Digital marketers need to compare the performance of multiple competitors' channels to understand growth trends and engagement levels without manual data scraping. Solution: The getChannelStatistics and getTrendingVideos tools provide instant access to subscriber counts, total views, and engagement ratios.…

Key facts

  • Open Source
  • Databases & Data Stores, Design, Media & Creative, Web Search & Research
  • metadata, mongodb, transcripts, video, youtube

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