BrainTube MCP Server

Connect BrainTube to Any AI

BrainTube ships a native Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, so any MCP-capable AI client can read your transcripts, summaries, and highlights as first-class context.

What is MCP?

Model Context Protocol is an open standard from Anthropic that gives AI clients one uniform way to read external context. Instead of every tool building a bespoke integration, a client speaks MCP and the server exposes its data and tools through that shared interface.

BrainTube's MCP server is remote and hosted — there is nothing to install. You point a compliant client at the endpoint, authenticate, and your saved library becomes queryable from inside that client.

Supported clients

• Any MCP client — Native Model Context Protocol. Same endpoint, same config. If your assistant speaks MCP, it works — no integration from us required.
• Claude Desktop — Read summaries, search transcripts, and ask Claude to reason over your library.
• Cursor — Pull engineering talks and tutorials into your coding workflow as live context.
• ChatGPT — Connects in Developer mode, or via OpenAPI for custom GPTs. Both paths in testing.
• Perplexity — Add BrainTube as a custom remote connector so answers can draw on your own saved material alongside the live web.
• VS Code · GitHub Copilot — Native MCP support in Copilot agent mode — pull saved talks and docs in as context beside the codebase.
• Gemini CLI — Add the endpoint to your settings.json and OAuth is discovered automatically. The Gemini chat app does not take custom connectors yet.
• Codex CLI — Remote streamable-HTTP is supported — add the URL, then sign in with codex mcp login.

Setup

Endpoint: https://mcp.brain-tube.com/mcp

Claude.ai (one-click, OAuth): go to Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector. First type a name for it (e.g. BrainTube), then paste https://mcp.brain-tube.com/mcp in the URL field and sign in when prompted. No API key needed — Claude.ai connects via OAuth.

Cursor, Claude Desktop, CLI tools, and other MCP clients:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "braintube": {
      "type": "streamable-http",
      "url": "https://mcp.brain-tube.com/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "X-BrainTube-Token": "bt_your_key_here"
      }
    }
  }
}

1. Using Claude.ai? Connect with the one-click OAuth flow above and skip to step 4. For Cursor, Claude Desktop, CLI tools and any other MCP client, create an API key at Settings → API Keys (https://app.brain-tube.com/settings).
2. Paste the config above into your MCP client's config (or add the URL + X-BrainTube-Token header through the client's UI).
3. Replace bt_your_key_here with your real key and restart the client.
4. Try: "Summarize the last 5 videos I saved about pricing."

Available MCP tools

Tool	Description
search_knowledge	Full-text search over your personal BrainTube knowledge corpus. Searches across YouTube, Instagram, web, LinkedIn, GitHub, Twitter and more. Hybrid ranking (semantic + keyword, reciprocal-rank fusion); Bulgarian/Cyrillic queries are also searched in English.
get_video	Get full details for a specific saved item including transcript, description, summary, key takeaways. Pass YouTube video ID or internal UUID.
list_recent	List your most recently saved items across all source types.
get_stats	Get your personal corpus statistics: total items saved, breakdown by source type, taint distribution.
get_related	Find items semantically similar to a given item using vector similarity.
search_by_source	Search your corpus filtered to a specific source type (youtube, web, notion, twitter, pdf, etc).
search_by_date_range	Semantic search scoped to items saved between two dates.
tag_item	Add or remove tags on a saved item.
list_bookmarks	List saved bookmarks from your corpus. Filter by read/unread status.
toggle_bookmark	Bookmark an item, remove a bookmark, or toggle its read/unread state.
connect_readwise	Connect your Readwise account to BrainTube by saving your Readwise API token.
sync_readwise	Import highlights from your Readwise library into your BrainTube corpus.
ingest_notion_page	Ingest a single Notion page into your BrainTube corpus.
add_note	Write a note or AI-generated synthesis back to a specific item in your corpus.
get_recent_conversations	Retrieve your most recently saved Claude and ChatGPT conversations.
get_expertise_profile	Analyse your corpus to build a knowledge expertise profile — expert, intermediate, surface, and blind spots by topic.
get_session_brief	One-shot session bootstrap: expertise profile, last 5 AI conversations, and corpus stats in a single call.
ingest_content	Ingest a single piece of content (note, article, document, etc.) into your BrainTube corpus.
bulk_ingest	Ingest up to 50 items in a single call with dedup and embedding.
random_resurface	Surface forgotten items from your corpus using weighted randomness.
ingest_notion_database	Ingest all pages from a Notion database into your BrainTube corpus.
set_notion_api_key	Save your Notion integration API key for ingest_notion_page and ingest_notion_database.
backfill_embeddings	Generate vector embeddings for all items that are missing them. Required before semantic search.
generate_api_key	Generate a personal API key for Obsidian Sync CLI or other integrations. Key shown once only.
search_obsidian	Search your local Obsidian vault via the Obsidian Local REST API plugin.
chat_with_brain	Ask a question to a public BrainTube Brain (curated knowledge base). Returns answer + source citations.
list_brains	List all Brains you have created with slug, name, item count, and visibility.
get_knowledge_graph	Build a knowledge graph around a specific item, showing how it connects to others via knowledge_edges.
knowledge_health	Run a health check on your knowledge corpus: missing embeddings, stale items, gaps, overall score out of 100.
get_knowledge_index	Get a topic-level index of your entire knowledge corpus grouped by primary topic.
export_corpus	Export your entire BrainTube knowledge corpus as a ZIP of Markdown files. Returns a signed download URL.
compile_knowledge	Generate concept articles from a topic cluster or Brain via the compile-knowledge edge function.
get_concept_articles	Query compiled concept articles from your knowledge base, filter by cluster, brain, or search text.
tag_cooccurrence	Find tags that frequently appear together across your corpus.
entity_cooccurrence	Find named entities (people, orgs, tools) that frequently co-appear across your corpus.
detect_gaps	Detect knowledge gaps: thin topics, entities without depth, stale high-value items.
most_retrieved	Return the items you retrieve most often, ranked by retrieval_count.
export_claude_md	Generate a CLAUDE.md-compatible knowledge context file for any Claude Code project.
recompute_salience	Trigger a salience score recompute across your corpus.
deep_search	Multi-hop knowledge search: semantic search + graph traversal from top results.
retrieval_quality	Get a retrieval quality dashboard: search hit rates, zero-result queries, top terms.
find_path	Find the shortest path between two items in your knowledge graph.
compute_centrality	Recompute graph centrality scores across your corpus.
get_edge_history	Get temporal history of knowledge edges between two specific items.

Endpoint & authentication

Endpoint: https://mcp.brain-tube.com/mcp (MCP streamable-http)

Authentication accepts either an X-BrainTube-Token: bt_your_key_here header or an Authorization: Bearer bt_your_key_here header. Claude.ai can use OAuth instead of an API key.

Create and rotate keys at https://app.brain-tube.com/settings.

Frequently asked

What is MCP and why does BrainTube use it?

Model Context Protocol is an open standard from Anthropic that lets AI clients read external context through a unified interface. BrainTube ships a native MCP server so any compliant client — Claude Desktop, Cursor, Zed — can query your library without bespoke integrations.

Which AI clients work with BrainTube today?

Any client that speaks MCP. That's the point of building on an open standard instead of one integration at a time — when a new assistant ships MCP support, it reaches your library without us shipping anything. Claude Desktop and Cursor are the ones walked through step by step below; ChatGPT support is in testing. Anything speaking MCP streamable-http uses the same endpoint and the same config.

Do I need to be on a paid plan to use the MCP server?

No. MCP access is included on every plan, including Free. What differs by tier is the credit allowance: saving items, running searches and asking your brain all spend credits, and higher tiers get more of them. Free starts with 30 credits a month.

Where is my API key stored and how do I rotate it?

Keys are created in the BrainTube app under Settings → API Keys. They are shown once at creation, hashed at rest, and can be rotated or revoked at any time. Each key has its own audit log.

Can BrainTube read my private notes or only public videos?

BrainTube reads only what you save into your own library — public YouTube videos, articles you ingest, PDFs you upload. It never crawls third-party accounts on your behalf.

What happens to my data if I disconnect a client?

Disconnecting an MCP client removes its access. Your library, summaries, and highlights remain in BrainTube untouched. You can reconnect or export everything at any time.