YouTube MCP Server (data)

What it does

A high-efficiency MCP server returning structured, token-minimized data from the YouTube Data API v3 (claims up to 87% token reduction vs raw API). Covers video details, search, transcripts, channel statistics, trending, and outlier-channel discovery — the research side of distribution: study what works before you publish.

Connect

claude mcp add youtube -e YOUTUBE_API_KEY=YOUR_KEY -- npx -y @kirbah/mcp-youtube

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "youtube-data": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "@kirbah/mcp-youtube"
      ],
      "env": {
        "YOUTUBE_API_KEY": "YOUR_KEY_HERE"
      }
    }
  }
}

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "youtube-data": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "@kirbah/mcp-youtube"
      ],
      "env": {
        "YOUTUBE_API_KEY": "YOUR_KEY_HERE"
      }
    }
  }
}

Sample tools

Field notes

MIT, npm v1.1.14 released 2026-09-11; that release raised the floor to Node 22+, and everything since has been Dependabot bumps (repo pushed 2026-10-01), so it is maintained rather than developed. Still only 29 stars. Read-only: no upload, so pair it with yutu. Quota reality: searchVideos costs 100 units per call and getChannelTopVideos 101 against a 10k/day default, and getVideoComments is 1 unit plus another per top-level comment once you ask for replies. The 'zero API cost' transcripts do not use the Data API at all — they go through youtube-transcript-plus, which scrapes YouTube's timedtext endpoint, so treat transcript pulls as a ToS gray area and expect them to break when YouTube changes it. MongoDB is less optional than it looks: MDB_MCP_CONNECTION_STRING is required for findConsistentOutlierChannels and the README recommends it for caching everything else. Higher-profile alternative: ZubeidHendricks/youtube-mcp-server (577 stars, but no push since 2026-08-08, multi-key quota fallback).

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Used in

AI Commercial Sprint · Character-Consistent Series · Archive To Trailer · Open Lab

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