MCP YouTube Extract MCP Server

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for YouTube operations, demonstrating core MCP concepts including tools and logging.

✨ No API Key Required!Works out of the box using yt-info-extract for video metadata and yt-ts-extract for transcripts.

- MCP Server: A fully functional MCP server with:

- Tools: Extract information from YouTube videos including metadata and transcripts
- Comprehensive Logging: Detailed logging throughout the application
- Error Handling: Robust error handling with fallback logic for transcripts

- Extract video information (title, description, channel, publish date, view count)
- Get video transcripts with intelligent fallback logic
- Support for both manually created and auto-generated transcripts
- No API key required for basic functionality

This package is now available on PyPI! You can install it directly with:

Visit the package page:mcp-youtube-extract on PyPI

The easiest way to get started is to install from PyPI:

Or using pipx (recommended for command-line tools):

This will install the latest version with all dependencies. You can then run the MCP server directly:

# Install uv if you haven't already curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh # Clone and install the project git clone https://github.com/sinjab/mcp_youtube_extract.git cd mcp_youtube_extract # Install dependencies (including dev dependencies) uv sync --dev # Set up your API key for development cp .env.example .env # Edit .env and add your YouTube API key

git clone https://github.com/sinjab/mcp_youtube_extract.git cd mcp_youtube_extract

No configuration required!The server works out of the box using yt-info-extract for metadata extraction.

Optional:For enhanced functionality, you can optionally set a YouTube API key:

# Optional YouTube API Configuration YOUTUBE_API_KEY=your_youtube_api_key_here

- YOUTUBE_API_KEY: Your YouTube Data API key (optional, provides additional fallback for metadata extraction)

While not required, you can optionally set up a YouTube Data API key for enhanced functionality. Here's how to get one:
- Go to the Google Cloud Console
- Click "Select a project" at the top of the page
- Click "New Project" and give it a name (e.g., "MCP YouTube Extract")
- Click "Create"
- In your new project, go to the API Library
- Search for "YouTube Data API v3"
- Click on it and then click "Enable"
- Go to the Credentials page
- Click "Create Credentials" and select "API Key"
- Your new API key will be displayed - copy it immediately
- Click "Restrict Key" to secure it (recommended)

Step 4: Restrict Your API Key (Recommended)

- In the API key settings, click "Restrict Key" - Under "API restrictions", select "Restrict key" - Choose "YouTube Data API v3" from the dropdown - Click "Save" - Go to the Billing page - Link a billing account to your project - Note: YouTube Data API has a free tier of 10,000 units per day, which is typically sufficient for most use cases

- Free Tier: 10,000 units per day
- Cost: $5 per 1,000 units after free tier
- Note: API key is only used as a fallback when yt-info-extract fails
- Most users won't need an API key as yt-info-extract handles most requests

- Never commit your API keyto version control
- Use environment variablesas shown in the configuration section
- Restrict your API keyto only the YouTube Data API
- Monitor usagein the Google Cloud Console

# Install from PyPI pip install mcp-youtube-extract # Run the server mcp_youtube_extract

# Using uv uv run mcp_youtube_extract # Or directly python -m mcp_youtube_extract.server

# Run all pytest tests uv run pytest # Run specific pytest test uv run pytest tests/test_with_api_key.py # Run tests with coverage uv run pytest --cov=src/mcp_youtube_extract --cov-report=term-missing

Note: Thetests/directory contains 4 files:

- test_context_fix.py- Pytest test for context API fallback functionality
- test_with_api_key.py- Pytest test for full functionality with API key
- test_youtube_unit.py-Unit testsfor core YouTube functionality
- test_inspector.py-Standalone inspection script(not a pytest test)

Test Coverage: The project currently has 62% overall coverage with excellent coverage of core functionality:

- youtube.py: 81% coverage (core business logic)
- logger.py: 73% coverage (logging utilities)
- server.py: 22% coverage (MCP protocol handling)
- __init__.py: 100% coverage (package initialization)

Thetest_inspector.pyfile is a standalone script that connects to the MCP server and validates its functionality:

# Run the inspection script to test server connectivity and functionality uv run python tests/test_inspector.py

- Connect to the MCP server
- List available tools, resources, and prompts
- Test theget_yt_video_infotool with a sample video
- Validate that the server is working correctly

The server provides one main tool:get_yt_video_info

This tool takes a YouTube video ID and returns:

- Video metadata (title, description, channel, publish date, view count) via yt-info-extract
- Video transcript (with fallback logic for different transcript types) via yt-ts-extract

# Extract video ID from YouTube URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ video_id = "dQw4w9WgXcQ" result = get_yt_video_info(video_id)

To use this MCP server with a client, add the following configuration to your client's settings:

{ "mcpServers": { "mcp_youtube_extract": { "command": "mcp_youtube_extract" } } }

{ "mcpServers": { "mcp_youtube_extract": { "command": "mcp_youtube_extract", "env": { "YOUTUBE_API_KEY": "your_youtube_api_key" } } } }

{ "mcpServers": { "mcp_youtube_extract": { "command": "uv", "args": [ "--directory", "<your-project-directory>", "run", "mcp_youtube_extract" ] } } }

{ "mcpServers": { "mcp_youtube_extract": { "command": "uv", "args": [ "--directory", "<your-project-directory>", "run", "mcp_youtube_extract" ], "env": { "YOUTUBE_API_KEY": "your_youtube_api_key" } } } }

mcp_youtube_extract/ ├── src/ │ └── mcp_youtube_extract/ │ ├── __init__.py │ ├── server.py # MCP server implementation │ ├── google_api.py # yt-info-extract integration │ ├── transcript_api.py # yt-ts-extract integration │ ├── youtube.py # Unified API facade │ └── logger.py # Logging configuration ├── tests/ │ ├── __init__.py │ ├── test_context_fix.py # Context API fallback tests │ ├── test_inspector.py # Server inspection tests │ ├── test_with_api_key.py # Full functionality tests │ └── test_youtube_unit.py # Unit tests for core functionality ├── logs/ # Application logs ├── .env # Environment variables (create from .env.example) ├── .gitignore # Git ignore rules (includes coverage files) ├── pyproject.toml ├── LICENSE # MIT License └── README.md

The project uses a comprehensive testing approach:
- Unit Tests(test_youtube_unit.py): Test core YouTube functionality with mocked yt-info-extract
- Integration Tests(test_context_fix.py,test_with_api_key.py): Test full server functionality
- Manual Validation(test_inspector.py): Interactive server inspection tool

The project includes robust error handling:

- Graceful extraction failures: Returns appropriate error messages instead of crashing
- Multiple fallback strategies: yt-info-extract provides automatic fallback between YouTube Data API, yt-dlp, and pytubefix
- Transcript fallback logic: Multiple strategies for transcript retrieval via yt-ts-extract
- Consistent error responses: Standardized error message format
- Comprehensive logging: Detailed logs for debugging and monitoring

# Install build dependencies uv add --dev hatch # Build the package uv run hatch build

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see theLICENSEfile for details.

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.
- Fork the repository
- Create a feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
- Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add some amazing feature')
- Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
- Open a Pull Request

If you encounter any issues or have questions, please:
- Check the existing issues
- Create a new issue with detailed information about your problem
- Include logs and error messages when applicable

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MCP YouTube Extract

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Setup

Step 4: Restrict Your API Key (Recommended)

About

Details

Jump to

Setup

Step 4: Restrict Your API Key (Recommended)

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