TubeAlfred — YouTube Transcripts, Comments & Channel Data for OpenClaw

TubeAlfred brings YouTube transcripts, comments and channel data into OpenClaw. No YouTube API key required. No YouTube Data API quota to manage.

Retrieve available YouTube transcripts with timestamps and caption-language metadata. List a channel's videos and retrieve their available transcripts, or explore comments, replies, Shorts, playlists, community posts, search, and video details. All YouTube operations are read-only; the plugin also includes TubeAlfred billing usage lookup.

100 free credits on signup. Most successful YouTube tool calls cost 1 credit.

Looking for the hosted MCP server for Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor instead? See TubeAlfred MCP and connect to https://mcp.tubealfred.com/.

Requirements

• OpenClaw installed locally.
• A TubeAlfred account.
• A TubeAlfred API key with youtube.read for YouTube tools and billing.read for billing usage.

Create an API key in TubeAlfred:

https://tubealfred.com/app/api-keys

Choose Create key, select the scopes you need, then copy the key immediately. TubeAlfred only shows the full key once.

Install

openclaw plugins install clawhub:@tubealfred/tubealfred-youtube
openclaw plugins enable tubealfred-youtube
openclaw gateway restart

Configure

Set a TubeAlfred API key in your OpenClaw config:

{
  plugins: {
    entries: {
      "tubealfred-youtube": {
        enabled: true,
        config: {
          apiKey: "ta_live_..."
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Use the key you created at https://tubealfred.com/app/api-keys.

Advanced config:

{
  plugins: {
    entries: {
      "tubealfred-youtube": {
        enabled: true,
        config: {
          apiKey: "ta_live_...",
          apiBaseUrl: "https://api.tubealfred.com",
          timeoutMs: 35000,
          retries: 1
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Tools

This plugin mirrors the TubeAlfred MCP/API YouTube surface and adds billing usage lookup with vendor-prefixed OpenClaw tool names:

tubealfred_billing_usage
tubealfred_youtube_video_get
tubealfred_youtube_video_transcript
tubealfred_youtube_comments_list
tubealfred_youtube_comments_page
tubealfred_youtube_replies_list
tubealfred_youtube_replies_page
tubealfred_youtube_channel_get
tubealfred_youtube_channel_about
tubealfred_youtube_channel_videos
tubealfred_youtube_channel_shorts
tubealfred_youtube_channel_playlists
tubealfred_youtube_channel_community
tubealfred_youtube_search_query
tubealfred_youtube_search_hashtag
tubealfred_youtube_search_suggest
tubealfred_youtube_playlist_get
tubealfred_youtube_url_resolve

All tools are read-only and call https://api.tubealfred.com.

Development

pnpm install
pnpm test
pnpm typecheck
pnpm build

Tool names, schemas, routes, and request mapping are generated from the versioned TubeAlfred operation manifest. Use pnpm contract:sync to refresh it; builds run pnpm contract:check to reject drift.

Local OpenClaw install:

openclaw plugins install --link .
openclaw plugins enable tubealfred-youtube
openclaw plugins inspect tubealfred-youtube --runtime --json

Publish

clawhub package publish . --dry-run
clawhub package publish .

The ClawHub package name is:

@tubealfred/tubealfred-youtube