Claude Code How to use YouTube with Claude Code
You want YouTube inside Claude Code so it can research videos for a topic, find the original source video, build a watchlist from search results, and verify video references — without you copy-pasting between tabs. Here is the whole setup, once.
Create your YouTube gateway
The gateway is the thing Claude Code connects to, and it is where you decide which YouTube tools an agent may use. You create it once and every client reuses it.
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Create an Arcade account
Sign up and open the dashboard. The free tier is enough to follow this through.
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Create an MCP Gateway and select your YouTube tools
In the dashboard, create a gateway and pick the YouTube tools you want to expose. The gateway is what your client connects to, and it is where tool access is decided.
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Copy your gateway URL
Every client below needs it.
https://api.arcade.dev/mcp/<YOUR-GATEWAY-SLUG>
Connect the gateway to Claude Code
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Add the gateway as a remote HTTP MCP server
claude mcp add arcade --transport http "<YOUR_ARCADE_GATEWAY_URL>"
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Verify it was added
claude mcp get arcade claude mcp list
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Try it out
Open Claude Code in your project and ask it to use one of your YouTube tools.
Full Claude Code guide in the docs steps verified 2026-08-13
Try these YouTube prompts
Claude Code can now act on your YouTube account. Click a prompt to copy it.
Keep the agent limited to searching for videos and reading video details with a shared API key. Pair it with Contextual Access policies so the agent can inspect videos without access to other services or actions.
