Ask "what's the best video on…?" and Claude finds it, watches it, and reports back. Drop a long podcast in chat — get the highlights in seconds. Cut clips, build reels, pull transcripts — all without opening a YouTube tab.
Quick Start · Try it · Discord · Demo
Click the image to watch the 1-minute walkthrough.
1. Install the plugin — inside Claude Code, run:
/plugin marketplace add JCodesMore/jcodesmore-plugins
/plugin install youtube@jcodesmore-plugins
Then fully restart Claude Code (quit the app and reopen).
2. That's it. No API key, no signup. Just start asking.
Optional: run
/youtube:setupto sign in with your own YouTube cookies for personalized search and recommendations.
Talk to Claude like a friend:
- "Watch this video and give me the recipe — I don't want to scroll the comments."
- "Find me five highly-rated videos on Roman history."
- "What are this channel's best uploads? Watch the top three and summarize."
- "Pull the actionable takeaways from this 90-minute interview."
- "Cut a 30-second clip starting at 2:15 from this video."
- "Combine these three cooking videos into a single highlight reel."
The agent searches, watches, and reports back — no scrubbing, no scrolling.
Nine smart tools wrapped in two skills and one agent — search, watch, clip, and reel without leaving the chat.
| Capability | Try saying |
|---|---|
| Search videos, channels, playlists | "find me the top videos on…" |
| Watch and summarize | "watch this and tell me what matters" |
| Browse a channel or playlist | "what's worth watching from this YouTuber?" |
| Pull a transcript | "grab the transcript around the 5-minute mark" |
| Download video or audio | "save the audio of this video" |
| Cut a clip | "clip 2:15 to 2:45 from this video" |
| Build a highlight reel | "combine these clips into one reel" |
Discord — chat, help, show-and-tell · Issues — bugs & feature requests · Contribute · More plugins
Personalized results (optional)
By default, search runs anonymously — no login required. If you want personalized recommendations and search results, run /youtube:setup and follow the cookie-extraction wizard. Cookies stay on your machine in the plugin data directory; nothing is uploaded anywhere.
Use it in Cursor, Codex, OpenCode, or Gemini CLI
The MCP server is portable. Per-platform setup guides:
Advanced install (without the marketplace)
Clone and build it yourself:
git clone https://github.com/JCodesMore/youtube-for-ai-agents.git
cd youtube-for-ai-agents
npm install
npm run buildOr wire the published npm package directly into any MCP-compatible client:
{
"mcpServers": {
"youtube": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "@jcodesmore/youtube-for-ai-agents"]
}
}
}Requirements: Node.js ≥ 18.
Built on
- Model Context Protocol SDK — tool exposure to Claude
- youtubei.js — YouTube InnerTube client (no API key needed)
- youtube-transcript-plus — transcript fetching
- ytdlp-nodejs — video and audio downloads
- Zod — schema validation
Apache License 2.0 — © 2026 JCodesMore
Uses youtubei.js, an unofficial YouTube client. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or associated with YouTube or Google.
Part of jcodesmore-plugins.