YouTube MCP

MCP server for driving your own YouTube channel from Claude: upload videos, edit metadata, set thumbnails, run pseudo-A/B thumbnail tests, and pull analytics.

What works (and what YouTube won't let anyone do via API)

Capability	Status
Upload videos (resumable, with schedule)	✅ youtube_upload
Edit title / description / tags / category / privacy	✅ youtube_update_metadata
Set custom thumbnail	✅ youtube_set_thumbnail (channel must be verified)
Analytics: views, watch time, avg view %, subs, likes	✅ youtube_analytics
Native thumbnail/title A/B "Test & Compare"	❌ No public API — Studio-only
Impressions & click-through-rate (CTR)	❌ Not exposed by the Analytics API — Studio-only

Because the last two are walled off by YouTube, the A/B tools here rotate thumbnails on a ledger and compare views gained per equal-length window as a CTR proxy. Useful, but not a rigorous split test. Use windows ≥ 24h.

Setup

1. Google Cloud → enable YouTube Data API v3 and YouTube Analytics API. Create an OAuth Client ID of type Desktop app. Add your Google account under OAuth consent screen → Test users (or publish to Production for durable tokens — Testing-mode refresh tokens die after 7 days idle).

2. Credentials

   cp .env.example .env
   # fill in YOUTUBE_CLIENT_ID and YOUTUBE_CLIENT_SECRET
   

3. Authorize once (opens a browser):

   ./run.sh authorize
   

   Writes a refresh token to ~/.local/share/youtube-mcp/token.json (off the exFAT drive, git-ignored).

4. Register with Claude Code (~/.claude.json or project .mcp.json):

   {
     "mcpServers": {
       "youtube": { "command": "/Volumes/NO NAME/youtube-mcp/run.sh" }
     }
   }
   

Tools

• youtube_whoami — channel id, counts, verification status
• youtube_list_uploads — recent uploads + video ids
• youtube_upload — upload a local file (title, tags, category, privacy, publish_at, thumbnail)
• youtube_update_metadata — partial edit; unspecified fields preserved
• youtube_set_thumbnail — set a custom thumbnail
• youtube_ab_start / youtube_ab_rotate / youtube_ab_report — pseudo A/B thumbnails
• youtube_analytics — per-video analytics over a date range

Hands-off A/B rotation (optional, launchd)

youtube_ab_start sets V0 live. To auto-advance every 48h without babysitting, schedule the rotate step:

<!-- ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.you.youtube-ab.plist -->
<plist version="1.0"><dict>
  <key>Label</key><string>com.you.youtube-ab</string>
  <key>ProgramArguments</key>
  <array>
    <string>/Volumes/NO NAME/youtube-mcp/run.sh</string>
    <string>rotate</string>
    <string>YOUR_VIDEO_ID</string>
  </array>
  <key>StartInterval</key><integer>172800</integer>  <!-- 48h -->
</dict></plist>

launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.you.youtube-ab.plist

Security

• token.json grants ongoing access to your channel — treat like a password.
• .env, token.json, ab_tests.json are git-ignored. Never commit them.
• Rotate the client secret in Google Cloud if it ever leaks.

Author

Built by Jayadev Rana — @bluealgocapital · YouTube · GitHub