Transcriptor MCP

io.github.samson-artPublished by GitHub account samson-artv1.5.24Updated Nov 4, 2026

Fetch transcripts, subtitles, chapters, metadata and frames from YouTube and 10+ video platforms

VerifiedStreamable HTTPWeb executableWeb Search & ScrapingMedia & Design

Overview

Transcriptor's hosted MCP server (transcriptor.gateway.mcpal.io); OAuth sign-in required; Streamable HTTP.

No AI overview yet: these facts come from the registry entry and the server itself.

Endpoint
transcriptor.gateway.mcpal.io
Last checked

Installation

In SourceWeft

  1. Open Transcriptor MCP in the dashboard and add it to a workspace.
  2. Connect the required credentials. They are stored privately and never shown on public pages.
  3. Enable the server for the chats that should use its tools.

Web executable via Streamable HTTP. Remote servers run from the web runtime once configured in a workspace.

Use with an agent

Paste this prompt into Claude Code, Codex, Cursor or another agent — or into SourceWeft chat. The agent reads this server's install guide, shows you its publisher, endpoint and sign-in, and adds it to your client once you agree. Keys never go into a command.

Read https://sourceweft.com/mcp/io.github.samson-art%2Ftranscriptor-mcp/install.md and connect the MCP server it describes to my client. Before changing any config, show me its publisher, endpoint and sign-in method and wait for my OK. Never put an API key in a command or in a file I would commit; ask me where it should come from.

Read the install guide the agent follows

Other MCP clients

Add this to your client's mcpServers config. The client completes OAuth sign-in on first connect.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "transcriptor": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://transcriptor.gateway.mcpal.io/mcp"
    }
  }
}

README

[Transcriptor MCP]

🎬 Now your AI assistant can watch videos!

Connect one server. Then ask Claude, ChatGPT or etc about a video: the transcript, the chapters, the metadata, or a single frame. It works with 11 platforms, not only YouTube.

[Website] [ChatGPT] [MCP Registry] [Docker] [MCP Apps] [License]

Connect · What to ask · Widgets · Platforms · Self-host

⚡ Connect in 30 seconds

The hosted endpoint is:

text
https://transcriptor.gateway.mcpal.io/mcp

🖱️ One click

[Add to Cursor] [Install in VS Code] [Add to LM Studio]

⌨️ One command, for Claude Code

bash
claude mcp add --transport http transcriptor https://transcriptor.gateway.mcpal.io/mcp

Then run /mcp and approve the sign-in in the browser. After this, claude mcp list shows ✔ Connected.

🧭 No terminal

ClientWhat to do
Claude (web and desktop)Open Settings → Customize → Connectors. Select Add → Add custom connector, paste https://transcriptor.gateway.mcpal.io/mcp, then select Add.
ChatGPTOpen Transcriptor in the ChatGPT plugin directory and select Install plugin; sign in when asked. Or in ChatGPT open Plugins, search Transcriptor, select Install plugin. Then mention @Transcriptor in a chat.
CodexSame directory, one install: ChatGPT and Codex share it. In a Codex task open Sources → Use plugins → Transcriptor; in the CLI, /plugins.

🧩 Any other MCP client

If your client is not in the list above, add the server with this configuration:

json
{  "mcpServers": {    "transcriptor": {      "url": "https://transcriptor.gateway.mcpal.io/mcp"    }  }}

If you want to run the server yourself, read Self-host. The tools are the same and you need no account.

🧰 What you can ask

Ask for thisTool
"Summarize this video for me"get_transcript
"Give me the subtitles as an SRT file"get_raw_subtitles
"Is there a German track for this video?"get_available_subtitles
"Who published this and how many views?"get_video_info
"Go to the part about pricing"get_video_chapters
"Show me the screen at 4:12"get_video_frame
"Get English transcripts for the first 5 videos in this playlist"get_playlist_transcripts
"Find recent videos about X"search_videos (YouTube)

Long transcripts come in parts. Each response gives a cursor for the next part, so no text is lost.

Full tool reference (input and structured response)

Each tool that takes a video accepts url. This is a link from a supported platform or a plain YouTube ID. Each tool returns content (text for the chat) and structuredContent (typed JSON for your code).

get_transcript

Clean plain text, without timestamps, HTML, or speaker names. Without lang, the tool returns the track in the video's original language. Most platforms other than YouTube do not say which language a video is in; when the tool cannot tell which track that is, it answers with the list of tracks, and you call it again with type and lang. The inputs are the same as for get_raw_subtitles.

Response: videoId, url (the video page, as the server resolved it), type, lang, text, is_truncated, total_length, start_offset, end_offset. When more text is available, the response also has next_cursor.

get_raw_subtitles

Raw SRT or VTT content, in parts.

Input:

  • type — official or auto. Without lang, the tool picks a track of this type
  • lang — a language code or track name, as get_available_subtitles lists it. Without it, the video's original language, as for get_transcript
  • response_limit — default 50000, minimum 1000, maximum 200000
  • next_cursor — the cursor of the previous response

Response: the fields of get_transcript, plus format (srt or vtt) and content.

get_available_subtitles

Response: official and auto. Each field is a sorted list of language codes. Use this tool first, then give type and lang to the tools above.

get_video_info

Extended metadata from yt-dlp:

  • identity — videoId, title, description, webpageUrl
  • author — uploader, uploaderId, channel, channelId, channelUrl
  • numbers — duration, uploadDate, viewCount, likeCount, commentCount
  • classification — tags, categories, liveStatus, isLive, wasLive, availability
  • images — thumbnail and thumbnails
get_video_chapters

Response: chapters. Each item has startTime, endTime, and title. When the video has no chapters, the list is empty.

get_video_frame

Input:

  • timecode — "MM:SS" or "HH:MM:SS.mmm"
  • seconds — an alternative to timecode. Give one of the two, not both
  • format — jpeg (default) or png
  • width — default 1280, maximum 1920, never larger than the source
  • quality — 2 to 31, for jpeg only

Response: an image block, plus url, timestampSeconds, timestamp, mimeType, sizeBytes, and width. This tool needs ffmpeg. The Docker image includes it.

get_playlist_transcripts

Input:

  • url — a playlist URL, or a watch URL with list=
  • type, lang, format — the same as get_raw_subtitles, except that lang is required: the original language is picked only for one video at a time
  • playlistItems — a yt-dlp -I value such as 1:5, 1,3,7, or -1
  • maxItems — the maximum number of videos

Response: results. Each item has videoId and text.

search_videos

Input:

  • query — the search text
  • limit — default 10, maximum 50
  • offset — the number of results to skip
  • uploadDateFilter — hour, today, week, month, or year
  • response_format — json (default) or markdown

Response: results. Each item has videoId, title, url, duration, uploader, viewCount, and thumbnail.

📺 Widgets

Four tools have an interactive interface: get_transcript, get_video_info, get_video_frame, and search_videos. Clients that support MCP Apps and the ChatGPT Apps SDK show this interface in the chat. Other clients get the same data as text and JSON.

[The search_videos widget: a carousel of result cards with thumbnails, durations, and view counts]

search_videos · "model context protocol MCP server production"

 [The get_video_frame widget: one captured frame with step controls and a timecode field]

get_video_frame · an architecture slide at 3:30

[The get_transcript widget: a video card above a searchable list of timed captions]

get_transcript · a 3-minute MCP explainer, official captions

 [The get_video_info widget: thumbnail, channel, views, likes, description, and a subtitle language picker]

get_video_info · channel, views, likes, and 169 caption languages

🌍 Platforms

YouTube · Twitter/X · Instagram · TikTok · Twitch · Vimeo · Facebook · Bilibili · VK · Dailymotion · Reddit

Each tool that takes a video accepts a link from these 11 platforms. The tool search_videos works with YouTube only, through yt-dlp ytsearch.

The server does not download video or audio files for you. It returns text, metadata, and single frames.

🐳 Self-host

The tools are the same as on the hosted endpoint. You need no account.

Run the server with Docker. The image serves Streamable HTTP on port 4200:

bash
docker run --rm -p 4200:4200 artsamsonov/transcriptor-mcp:latest

Then point your client at http://localhost:4200/mcp.

For stdio, give the image an explicit command:

bash
docker run --rm -i artsamsonov/transcriptor-mcp:latest npm run start:mcp
json
{  "mcpServers": {    "transcriptor": {      "command": "docker",      "args": ["run", "--rm", "-i", "artsamsonov/transcriptor-mcp:latest", "npm", "run", "start:mcp"]    }  }}

The server starts with no environment variables. Each variable below is optional.

VariableDefaultFunction
MCP_PORT and MCP_HOST4200 and 0.0.0.0The HTTP listener
COOKIES_FILE_PATH—A Netscape cookies file for videos that need an account. See cookies.example.txt
WHISPER_MODEoffSet local or api to transcribe the audio when a video has no subtitles. Then set WHISPER_BASE_URL or WHISPER_API_KEY. WHISPER_MAX_DURATION_SECONDS skips longer videos and live streams; a video whose length the platform does not report is measured with ffprobe after the audio download
CACHE_MODEoffSet redis and CACHE_REDIS_URL to cache subtitles and metadata
YT_DLP_MAX_CONCURRENCY4How many yt-dlp/ffmpeg processes may run at once. YT_DLP_MAX_QUEUE (8) is how many calls may wait; beyond that a call is refused at once with "server busy". A call peaks at ~40 MiB, so the cap bounds platform throttling and latency, not memory
SUBTITLES_RATE_LIMIT_HOLD_MS600000After a platform answers 429 to a subtitle download, the server stops asking that platform for subtitles for this long and answers rate_limited right away. Each repeat doubles the wait, up to an hour; a successful download clears it. Metadata is not held back
CANARY_INTERVAL_MS900000How often the HTTP server fetches one transcript to prove the path still works. 0 turns it off; CANARY_URL picks the video
YT_DLP_*—Timeouts, proxy, and JS runtimes. See .env.example

The same port serves GET /health and GET /metrics. The metrics are in Prometheus format and include the mcp_* counters.

Transport, REST API, and development

Transport. The server accepts POST /mcp only. GET and DELETE return 405. The server is stateless and sends no Mcp-Session-Id.

The Node process does not check bearer tokens. Put a reverse proxy or a gateway in front of it for authentication and TLS. The hosted endpoint works this way.

REST API. A second image gives the same extraction over plain HTTP:

bash
docker run --rm -p 3000:3000 artsamsonov/transcriptor-mcp-api:latest

The Swagger interface is at http://localhost:3000/docs. For a full stack with the API and the MCP server, read docker-compose.example.yml.

Development.

bash
npm cinpm run buildnpm run start:mcp        # stdionpm run start:mcp:http   # Streamable HTTP on port 4200npm test

You need Node.js 22 or later (20 still works, but it reached end of life in April 2026), and yt-dlp in your PATH. Frame capture needs ffmpeg, and WHISPER_MAX_DURATION_SECONDS needs ffprobe (both ship in the same package, and in the Docker image). Other scripts: lint, type-check, format, test:coverage, test:e2e:api, and test:e2e:mcp.

Releases. The maintainer cuts them. The steps are in .claude/skills/release/SKILL.md. The version comes from package.json at runtime, through src/version.ts. Pushing a v* tag makes CI build both images and publish the MCP Registry entry from server.json.

Layout. src/mcp.ts (stdio entry), src/mcp-http.ts (Streamable HTTP), src/mcp-core.ts (tools, prompts, widgets), src/youtube.ts (yt-dlp), src/whisper.ts, src/cache.ts, src/index.ts (REST API), load/ (k6), and src/e2e/ (Docker smoke tests).

🤝 Contributing

Pull requests are welcome. Read CONTRIBUTING.md first: it describes the cycle from issue to review, for people and for coding agents.

⚖️ Legal

The hosted endpoint at transcriptor.gateway.mcpal.io is governed by the Terms of Service and the Privacy Policy.

A server you host yourself is not covered by those documents. It is governed by the MIT License only.

📄 License

MIT © 2026 samson-art. Read LICENSE.

💬 Support

Issues · GitHub profile · LinkedIn

Source: README.md at commit 4a9c3c6

Tools

0
This server asks you to sign in, so SourceWeft could not read its tools without an account and has not indexed them. What a connected account sees can depend on that account and its permissions.

Version history

17
  1. v1.5.24LatestNov 4, 2026
  2. v1.5.23Nov 3, 2026
  3. v1.5.21Oct 6, 2026
  4. v1.5.19Sep 30, 2026
  5. v1.5.14Sep 30, 2026
  6. v1.5.13Sep 26, 2026
  7. v1.5.9Sep 26, 2026
  8. v1.5.8Sep 25, 2026
  9. v1.5.7Sep 24, 2026
  10. v1.5.6Sep 23, 2026
  11. v1.5.5Sep 23, 2026
  12. v1.5.4Sep 23, 2026
  13. v1.5.1Sep 19, 2026
  14. v1.4.1Sep 18, 2026
  15. v1.3.3Sep 17, 2026
  16. v1.3.1Sep 17, 2026
  17. v1.2.4Sep 16, 2026

Score

85% of the applicable checks met

How complete this listing is, computed from the registry entry, the endpoint and public sources. Not a rating of the server and not a statement that it is safe or working today: reachability is a dated check, and no installs or reviews go into the score.

  • Reached in the last 30 daysRequired25 pts
  • Auth declaredRequired10 pts
  • Tools listed15 pts

    Answer tools/list without a credential, or ship a package that starts in a sandbox without one.

  • DescriptionRequired15 pts
  • Logo10 pts
  • Documentation15 pts
  • License10 pts