YouTube Captions MCP Server

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for retrieving YouTube video captions and subtitles. This server provides seamless integration with MCP-compatible clients to fetch and process YouTube video transcripts.

🌐 Live Server: mcp-youtube-subtitles.fly.dev/mcp

Features

• 🎥 Fetch captions from YouTube videos
• 🌐 Support for multiple subtitle formats
• 🔧 MCP-compliant server implementation
• 📝 TypeScript support with full type safety
• 🍪 Optional cookie support for enhanced access
• ⚡ Express.js server with CORS support

Prerequisites

• Node.js >= 18.0.0
• npm or yarn package manager

Installation

npm install

Configuration

Create a .env file in the root directory with the following optional variables:

PORT=3000
COOKIES_URL=https://url/path/to/cookies.txt

Environment Variables

Variable	Description	Default	Required
PORT	Server port number	3000	No
COOKIES_URL	URL to cookies.txt file for enhanced YouTube access	-	No

Usage

Development

npm run dev

Production

npm run build
npm start

Testing

npm test

MCP Inspector

Debug and inspect the MCP server using the official inspector:

npm run server:inspect

Scripts

• npm run build - Compile TypeScript to JavaScript
• npm start - Start the production server
• npm run dev - Start development server with hot reload
• npm test - Run tests
• npm run clean - Remove build directory
• npm run server:inspect - Start MCP inspector for debugging

Dependencies

Core Dependencies

• @modelcontextprotocol/sdk - MCP SDK for server implementation
• axios - HTTP client for API requests
• express - Web framework
• zod - Runtime type validation

Development Dependencies

• @modelcontextprotocol/inspector - MCP debugging tool
• typescript - TypeScript compiler
• tsx - TypeScript execution engine

License

This project is licensed under the Mozilla Public License 2.0 (MPL-2.0).

Author

xharuke

Contributing

1. Fork the repository at github.com/xHaruke/youtube-subtitles-mcp
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add some amazing feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
5. Open a Pull Request

Keywords

mcp, model-context-protocol, youtube, captions, subtitles, typescript