yt-playlist-organizer-mcp

An MCP server for organizing YouTube playlists via the YouTube Data API v3.

It does exactly one thing and nothing more: create, list, update, and delete playlists and their playlist items. It does not touch videos, channels, captions, comments, subscriptions, or any other YouTube Data API resource.

Built with the official @modelcontextprotocol/sdk and the YouTube Data API v3 REST endpoints (no heavy googleapis dependency).

Tools

Everything this server does. There are no other tools.

Playlists (/playlists)

Tool	HTTP	Quota	Description
playlists_list	GET	1	List playlists by id, channelId, or mine=true.
playlists_insert	POST	50	Create a playlist (requires title).
playlists_update	PUT	50	Modify a playlist (requires id + title).
playlists_delete	DELETE	50	Delete a playlist (requires id).

PlaylistItems (/playlistItems)

Tool	HTTP	Quota	Description
playlistItems_list	GET	1	List items by playlistId or id.
playlistItems_insert	POST	50	Add a videoId to a playlistId.
playlistItems_update	PUT	50	Modify a playlist item (e.g. its position).
playlistItems_delete	DELETE	50	Remove a playlist item (requires id).

Plus auth_status to check which credentials are configured.

Configuration

This server only ever calls the /playlists and /playlistItems endpoints. The rest of the YouTube Data API is out of scope.

The server reads two environment variables:

Variable	Purpose
YOUTUBE_API_KEY	Google API key. Enables public reads (playlists_list, playlistItems_list).
YOUTUBE_ACCESS_TOKEN	OAuth2 access token. Required for write tools and mine=true.

See .env.example.

• Reads (..._list) work with just an API key (or an access token).
• Writes (insert/update/delete) and mine=true require an OAuth2 access token with the scopes youtube, youtube.force-ssl, or youtubepartner.

Getting OAuth2 credentials

1. Create a project in Google Cloud Console.
2. Enable the YouTube Data API v3.
3. Create an OAuth2 client ID (Desktop app) and download the JSON.
4. Exchange credentials for an access token (e.g. via google-auth-oauthlib on Python, or a local OAuth flow service). Set YOUTUBE_ACCESS_TOKEN=<token>.
5. (Optional) Create an API key for simpler read-only use.

Nix

This is NixOS-friendly. Both a flake and a shell.nix are provided.

# Enter the dev shell (node + typescript toolchain)
nix develop

# or, non-flake:
nix-shell

Build

npm install        # install node deps (zod + MCP SDK)
npm run build      # emits dist/
npm run typecheck  # tsc --noEmit

Run locally

# Reads only (API key):
YOUTUBE_API_KEY=... node dist/index.js

# Reads + writes/mine (OAuth access token):
YOUTUBE_ACCESS_TOKEN=... node dist/index.js

Wiring into opencode

Add the following to ~/.config/opencode/opencode.jsonc under mcp:

"mcp": {
  "yt-playlist-organizer-mcp": {
    "type": "local",
    "command": ["node", "<path-to-repo>/dist/index.js"],
    "enabled": true,
    "environment": {
      "YOUTUBE_API_KEY": "{file:~/.secrets/yt-api-key}",
      "YOUTUBE_ACCESS_TOKEN": "{file:~/.secrets/yt-access-token}"
    }
  }
}

Replace <path-to-repo> with the absolute path where you cloned it, or install it via npm to run it by name:

npm install -g .
# then use:  "command": ["yt-playlist-organizer-mcp"]

To run it through the Nix shell instead, use the same key but change command:

"command": ["nix", "develop", "<path-to-repo>", "--command", "node", "dist/index.js"],

Notes

• Quota costs are per the official API docs and documented per tool.
• part values are validated against the valid sets for each resource.
• playlists_list / playlistItems_list require exactly one filter parameter; otherwise input validation rejects the call.
• Update tools (playlists_update, playlistItems_update) read the existing resource first and preserve any omitted fields (e.g. description, privacyStatus, position, contentDetails), rather than clearing them. Each update therefore costs an extra read against your quota.
• startAt/endAt are provided in seconds and converted to ISO 8601 durations (PT1M30S) before being sent to the API.

Development

npm install
npm test         # vitest unit tests
npm run typecheck
npm run build

License

MIT