TranscriptFetch MCP Server

A Model Context Protocol server that gives any MCP client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, and others) access to the TranscriptFetch API: a production transcript API for YouTube, TikTok and Instagram, with AI transcription when captions are missing. Fetch transcripts, search videos, list channels and playlists, and check your credit balance.

Get an API key

Create a free account at transcriptfetch.com. No card needed.
Open Dashboard, then API keys and create a key. It starts with tf_live_.
Put it in TRANSCRIPTFETCH_API_KEY in the client configuration below.

Every account gets 50 free credits a month. Failures are free: a fetch that returns no transcript is never charged.

Runs locally over stdio and calls the TranscriptFetch API with your key. Prefer a hosted, remote server? Point your client at https://transcriptfetch.com/mcp instead (OAuth or API key). The hosted server waits inline for short-form AI transcription, so no polling is needed there.

Tools

Tool	What it does
`get_transcript`	Transcript for a video. YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, or a direct media URL. Set `ai_fallback: true` to transcribe the audio when no captions exist (typically ~30 seconds for short videos, longer for long ones)
`search_videos`	Search YouTube by keyword
`list_channel_videos`	List a YouTube channel's videos (handle, ID, or URL)
`list_playlist_videos`	List a YouTube playlist's videos (ID or URL)
`get_credits`	Remaining credit balance for the key. Never billed

Pricing is per successful result: a caption fetch or a video list costs 1 credit, and AI transcription of the audio costs 1 credit per started minute of audio, charged only on delivery. Failed, blocked and empty results are never charged, which matters on short-form video where many clips have no speech at all.

Install

No install needed. Run it on demand with npx:

bash

TRANSCRIPTFETCH_API_KEY=tf_live_... npx -y transcriptfetch-mcp

Or install globally:

Terminal

npm install -g transcriptfetch-mcp

Requires Node 18+.

Run from source

bash

git clone https://github.com/TranscriptFetch/mcp-server
cd mcp-server && npm install && npm run build

Then point your client at the built entrypoint with "command": "node" and "args": ["/absolute/path/to/mcp-server/dist/index.js"].

Client configuration

Claude Desktop

Add this to claude_desktop_config.json (Settings then Developer then Edit Config):

config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "transcriptfetch": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "transcriptfetch-mcp"],
      "env": { "TRANSCRIPTFETCH_API_KEY": "tf_live_..." }
    }
  }
}

Cursor

Add the same block under mcpServers in your Cursor MCP settings.

Restart the client, and the five tools appear.

Example

Once connected, ask your assistant naturally:

Get the transcript for https://youtu.be/aircAruvnKk and summarize the key points.

Search YouTube for "how transformers work" and list the top 5 videos.

List the latest videos from @lexfridman and pull the transcript of the newest one.

How many TranscriptFetch credits do I have left?

The assistant picks the matching tool and works from the returned transcript or video list.

Configuration

Env var	Required	Default
`TRANSCRIPTFETCH_API_KEY`	yes	none
`TRANSCRIPTFETCH_BASE_URL`	no	`https://transcriptfetch.com`

Docker

The server speaks MCP over stdio, so there is no port to expose. -i is required: without an attached stdin the transport closes immediately and the container looks like it crashed.