API & MCP for developers

Connect Tubescribe to your own scripts, agents, and automations. Two ways in: a plain HTTP API, or a remote MCP server you can add to any MCP client.

1. Get a free API key

A key is optional for the HTTP API (anonymous calls are limited per IP) but required for MCP, so each user gets their own daily quota. Free tier: 3 transcripts per day. Cached videos do not count.

Create a free account (email + password) to generate and manage your keys.

2. HTTP API

POST /api/transcribe with a JSON body. CORS is open. The Authorization header is optional here.

curl -X POST https://tubescribe.watch/api/transcribe \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer tsk_your_key" \
  -d '{ "url": "https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ", "targetLang": "he" }'

Returns markdown, video metadata, timestamped segments, and a cached flag. Full schema in /llms.txt.

3. Remote MCP server

Add Tubescribe as a tool in any MCP client (Claude Desktop, Claude Code, or your own agent). Transport is streamable HTTP. Authentication is your API key as a bearer token.

Endpoint

https://tubescribe.watch/api/mcp

Claude Code (.mcp.json) / Claude Desktop config

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "tubescribe": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://tubescribe.watch/api/mcp",
      "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer tsk_your_key" }
    }
  }
}

Tools

transcribe_youtube — inputs url, targetLang. Returns the transcript as Markdown.
check_quota — how many transcripts you have left today.
list_languages — the supported target language codes.

Limits & fair use

Free tier: 3 transcripts per key per day.
Cache hits (a video + language someone already requested in the last 30 days) are free and instant — they never count against your quota.
On 429, respect the reset timestamp. Do not retry aggressively.
Need higher volume? Buy credit packs — credits kick in automatically once a key's free daily limit is used up, and your keys carry over.