Model Context Protocol

Fast Transcriber MCP server

Let an MCP-compatible AI assistant queue public audio and video links, monitor jobs, and retrieve completed transcripts.

What is MCP?

Model Context Protocol gives AI clients a standard way to discover and invoke external tools. Fast Transcriber exposes typed transcription tools so assistants can work with jobs without scraping the website.

Prerequisites

• A signed-in Fast Transcriber account.
• An active API key from the developer section.
• An MCP client that supports Streamable HTTP or local stdio servers.

Remote configuration

Use this endpoint with Streamable HTTP clients:

https://fast-transcriber.com/api/mcp

Clients that accept custom headers can use the following configuration. Keep the key in a secret store or environment variable when the client supports one.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "fast-transcriber": {
      "url": "https://fast-transcriber.com/api/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer ft_live_replace_me"
      }
    }
  }
}

Authentication

The MCP endpoint requires an API key in the HTTP bearer header. OAuth is not currently advertised, so clients must support custom bearer headers.

Authorization: Bearer ft_live_replace_me

Available tools

The remote server publishes three server-safe tools:

Example tool call

{
  "url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=example",
  "speaker_diarization": false
}

The result contains a job ID. Call get_transcription with that ID until the job is completed or failed.

Local file server

A remote server cannot read media from your computer. Self-host the included stdio package when the AI client needs to upload local files. It adds transcribe_file and wait_for_transcription to the three remote tools.

cd mcp-server
npm ci
npm run build

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "fast-transcriber": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/mcp-server/dist/index.js"],
      "env": {
        "FAST_TRANSCRIBER_API_TOKEN": "ft_live_replace_me",
        "FAST_TRANSCRIBER_ALLOWED_DIRS": "/absolute/path/to/media"
      }
    }
  }
}

Security

• Never commit API keys or paste them into prompts.
• Create separate keys for separate clients.
• Revoke a key immediately when a device is retired.
• Grant the local server only the required media directory.

Errors

Tool failures are returned as MCP error results with a safe message. Authentication failures use HTTP 401 before MCP execution. Account limits and unavailable plan features use the same REST rules.

Troubleshooting