Instagram + YouTube data for AI agents (MCP)

Connect two public-data scrapers to ChatGPT, Claude, Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf, n8n or your own agent in about a minute. No YouTube API key, no Instagram account, no shared keys: you sign in to your own Apify account with OAuth and pay per result.

Both are published by Yugenox Corporation on the Apify Store. This repo holds no server code: Apify hosts the MCP server at mcp.apify.com, and the URLs below pin it to these two Actors.

Pick a server

Each server exposes yugenox--youtube-scraper and/or yugenox--instagram-scraper, plus fetch-actor-details (lets the agent read the README and current price before a paid run) and Apify's run helpers get-actor-run, get-dataset-items, get-key-value-store-record and abort-actor-run.

Sign-in: the first tool call opens an Apify sign-in page (OAuth). Runs bill to the account you sign in with. Never paste a token into one of these URLs.

Connect in 60 seconds

Claude Code

claude mcp add --transport http yugenox-social "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,yugenox/instagram-scraper,yugenox/youtube-scraper"

Then run /mcp, pick yugenox-social and authenticate in the browser.

Or install the plugin, which adds the same server plus two skills that state the cost before each run:

/plugin marketplace add ArpitGandhi1934/yugenox-mcp
/plugin install yugenox-social-data@yugenox-mcp

The plugin folder, plugins/yugenox-social-data, also follows the Agent Plugins 1.0 format (plugin.json, mcp.json, skills/), so other clients that load Agent Plugins can install the same server and skills from it.

Claude.ai and Claude Desktop

Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector. Name it yugenox-social, paste the server URL, click Add, then Connect and sign in to Apify. Leave the OAuth client fields empty; Apify registers the client automatically.

ChatGPT

ChatGPT on the web → Settings → Apps & Connectors → Advanced settings → turn on Developer mode. Back in Apps & Connectors, click Create, paste the server URL, set Authentication to OAuth, confirm, and sign in to Apify. In a chat, enable the connector from the + menu under Developer mode. (Menu labels move between ChatGPT releases; the flow stays the same.)

Cursor

YouTube only: install · Instagram only: install

Or add it to ~/.cursor/mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "yugenox-social": {
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,yugenox/instagram-scraper,yugenox/youtube-scraper"
    }
  }
}

Cursor then asks you to sign in: open Settings → MCP and click the login button next to the server to finish the Apify sign-in.

VS Code (GitHub Copilot agent mode)

YouTube only: install · Instagram only: install

Or add it to .vscode/mcp.json (note the servers key):

{
  "servers": {
    "yugenox-social": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,yugenox/instagram-scraper,yugenox/youtube-scraper"
    }
  }
}

VS Code asks you to sign in to Apify when the server starts.

Windsurf

Add to ~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json, then refresh the MCP panel and sign in:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "yugenox-social": {
      "serverUrl": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,yugenox/instagram-scraper,yugenox/youtube-scraper"
    }
  }
}

n8n

Add an AI Agent node, then attach an MCP Client Tool:

• Endpoint: the server URL
• Server Transport: HTTP Streamable
• Authentication: MCP OAuth2 where your n8n version offers it; otherwise Bearer Auth with a credential that holds your own Apify token (kept in n8n's credential store, never in the URL)
• Tools to include: yugenox--youtube-scraper, yugenox--instagram-scraper, fetch-actor-details

Clients without remote OAuth

Any MCP client that only runs local (stdio) servers can use the mcp-remote bridge, which opens the Apify sign-in in your browser:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "yugenox-social": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "mcp-remote", "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,yugenox/instagram-scraper,yugenox/youtube-scraper"]
    }
  }
}

Every link and config above is generated from one file: install-links.json.

Use it from code

Minimal, runnable examples in examples/. Each reads your own APIFY_TOKEN from the environment and sends it as an Authorization header.

What it costs

You pay Apify per result, from your own account. Prices below are the Store list prices on 2026-09-26; the Actor pages are the source of truth.

• YouTube: $0.002 per video row. Top comments and the dislike estimate ride inside the row, so 100 videos with 20 comments each is $0.20. The same job with streamers/youtube-scraper plus its separate streamers/youtube-comments-scraper is $4.40 at their Free-tier prices ($0.40 for videos + $4.00 for 2,000 comments).
• Instagram: $0.0019 per row (post, comment, profile, place or keyword). Latest comments, Instagram's AI summary and view counts are included. Transcripts add $0.004 per started minute of audio, so a 30-second reel with its transcript is about $0.0059. Reels with no detectable speech are usually skipped for transcription.
• On Instagram, rows removed by your filters, sources that return nothing and private accounts cost nothing.
• On YouTube, every saved row is billed at $0.002, including error rows: an empty or over-filtered search, an unknown channel or playlist, and an unavailable, private or age-restricted video each save one row with an error field explaining why.

Good habit for agents: set maxItems on every call and say the estimate before running. The plugin skills and example prompts do this.

Example prompts

YouTube:

• "Pull the last 50 videos from @NASA and flag the ones above 2x the channel's median views."
• "Top 30 videos about 'home espresso' uploaded this month, sorted by views, with 10 top comments each. What do viewers complain about?"
• "Like-to-dislike ratio for these 40 video URLs." (Dislikes are estimates, see below.)
• "Audit @somecreator before we sponsor them: average views over the last 30 uploads and the sponsor and social links in their descriptions."

Instagram:

• "Transcribe the last 20 reels from @nasa and group the opening lines into hook types."
• "Every post [a brand handle] published in the last 30 days with likes, comments and plays."
• "Vet @somecreator: engagement rate over the last 30 posts, paid-partnership posts, and 20 similar accounts with a contact in their bio."
• "Reels using this sound: https://www.instagram.com/reels/audio/271328201351336/"

Honest limits

• Public data only. Nothing behind a sign-in: no stories, follower lists, tagged posts, private accounts, members-only videos or YouTube Studio analytics.
• YouTube dislikes are estimates from the community Return YouTube Dislike database, most accurate on older videos. YouTube removed public dislike counts in 2021.
• YouTube transcripts are not a feature here. With includeSubtitles on, the available subtitle languages are listed (best-effort); subtitle text is not reliable.
• YouTube duration is filled on search rows only for now; channel, playlist and video-URL rows leave it empty.
• Instagram hashtags and keywords return the curated top posts Instagram shows publicly, typically about 60 per term.
• Instagram creator signals are public engagement numbers. There are no audience demographics or fake-follower scores, and public reel play counts can undercount, so they are not a basis for creator payouts.
• Results can include public usernames and comment authors. Handle them under GDPR, PIPEDA or CCPA.

MCP Registry

Listed in the official MCP Registry as io.github.ArpitGandhi1934/yugenox-social-data, io.github.ArpitGandhi1934/yugenox-youtube-scraper and io.github.ArpitGandhi1934/yugenox-instagram-scraper. The entries live in registry/ and are published by GitHub Actions on each version tag.

About

Built by Yugenox Corporation, Toronto. Questions or a bug: open an issue here or on the Actor's Issues tab on Apify. Uses public data only. Not affiliated with or endorsed by YouTube, Google, Instagram, Meta, OpenAI or Anthropic.

MIT licensed (this repo's configs and examples). The Actors are paid services on Apify.