yt-dlp-mcp
Provides an MCP server (Node/TypeScript) that wraps yt-dlp to let AI agents search for videos, extract metadata, download subtitles/transcripts, and download video/audio (including trimming), via MCP tools such as ytdlp_search_videos and ytdlp_download_video/audio.
Score Breakdown
⚙ Agent Friendliness
🔒 Security
Security is mostly about client-side/agent-side usage: the tool supports cookie-based access through environment variables (and warns about authenticated endpoints). It claims URL validation, Zod input validation, and character limits, which can help against prompt/tool input issues. However, it also downloads content from third-party URLs and may execute yt-dlp with options/cookies, increasing the need for strict egress control and careful handling of cookie files to avoid leakage/logging. TLS enforcement is not directly applicable/observable for this MCP server from the README (it’s a local/server-side tool), so scoring is conservative.
⚡ Reliability
Best When
You need an agent toolchain that can pull structured information and/or media artifacts from public video URLs on-demand through MCP.
Avoid When
You have strict egress controls, cannot run npx/Node tooling, or require guaranteed stability of third-party video site behavior (yt-dlp scraping).
Use Cases
- • AI-assisted video discovery (search with pagination/date filters)
- • Metadata extraction for summarization or indexing
- • Transcript/subtitle retrieval and processing (VTT and cleaned text)
- • Automated video/audio downloads at specified resolution and optionally with time ranges
- • Use by MCP-compatible clients (Claude, Dive, Cursor, etc.) via an MCP client config
Not For
- • Replacing a full-fledged media CDN or streaming service
- • Use in environments where arbitrary third-party URL fetching/downloading is disallowed
- • Producing authoritative transcripts without considering source accuracy/quality
Interface
Authentication
No platform OAuth described; access control (when needed) is handled via passing cookies through environment configuration for yt-dlp.
Pricing
No pricing model for the package described; cost is primarily operational (your infrastructure, and rate/throughput of external platforms/yt-dlp behavior).
Agent Metadata
Known Gotchas
- ⚠ Downloads are performed via yt-dlp, which can fail for site-specific changes; agents should handle failures and possibly retry with alternative URLs/parameters.
- ⚠ Cookie-based access requires an additional JS runtime (deno) per README note; without it, authenticated downloads may fail.
- ⚠ Because the tool executes commands for downloads, an agent should validate URLs and constrain parameters (resolution/time ranges) to reduce unexpected large downloads.
- ⚠ When using transcripts/subtitles, language availability can vary; agents may need to query available languages first.
Alternatives
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Scores are editorial opinions as of 2026-03-30.