MCP server

Paste a video link into a chat and your agent reads what’s said in it. Server URL: https://app.bestvideotranscriptapi.com/mcp (Streamable HTTP)

Claude Code calling get_transcript on a YouTube link — Claude Code fetching a transcript over MCP

The MCP server runs the same transcript pipeline as the REST API. Both draw on one account, usage balance and rate limit.

Method	How	For
API key	`Authorization: Bearer sdt_...` header	Clients where you can set headers.
OAuth	Sign in to your account on first use	Apps that connect by URL only, like claude.ai and ChatGPT.

Connect a client

Claude Code
Cursor and others
claude.ai and ChatGPT

claude mcp add --transport http video-transcript-api https://app.bestvideotranscriptapi.com/mcp \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer <your key>"

Add this to the client’s MCP config (for Cursor, ~/.cursor/mcp.json):

{
   "mcpServers": {
      "video-transcript-api": {
         "type": "http",
         "url": "https://app.bestvideotranscriptapi.com/mcp",
         "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer <your key>" }
      }
   }
}

Add a custom connector with the server URL https://app.bestvideotranscriptapi.com/mcp, then sign in when asked. You don’t need an API key.

Tools

Tool	What it does
`get_transcript`	Gets the transcript of a video or audio link.
`get_transcript_status`	Checks a job that `get_transcript` started.
`create_upload`	Lets the agent upload and transcribe a file from your computer.

get_transcript

Argument	Required	Description
`url`	Yes	Any supported link, or the `url` from `create_upload`.
`lang`	No	A language code like `en` or `es-US`. See Language.
`mode`	No	`auto` (default), `native` or `generate`. See Captions or AI.
`format`	No	`text` (default): one `[mm:ss] text` line per segment. `json`: the REST response as JSON.

The text format starts with a language line:

Language: en (available: en, de)

[00:01] All right, so here we are in front of the elephants
[00:05] the cool thing about these guys is that they have really...

Videos an hour or longer use [hh:mm:ss]. If the transcript takes more than 25 seconds, the tool returns a job ID and tells the agent to call get_transcript_status.

get_transcript_status

Takes jobId and an optional format. Returns the transcript when it’s done, or the current status (queued or active) while it runs.

create_upload

Takes no arguments. Returns a curl command that uploads the file, and the url to pass to get_transcript. See Uploading files for how long the links last.

Errors

A failed tool call returns the same message as the REST API, followed by the request ID:

No captions found. Use mode=auto or mode=generate to transcribe the audio instead. (request id: …)

MCP calls show up on the Logs page and count toward your usage and rate limit.

Get started

Concepts

Agents

Reference

Connect a client

Tools

get_transcript

get_transcript_status

create_upload

Errors

​Sign-in

​Connect a client

​Tools

​get_transcript

​get_transcript_status

​create_upload

​Errors

Sign-in

Connect a client

Tools

get_transcript

get_transcript_status

create_upload

Errors