cursorCursor MCP Integration

Give Cursor real YouTube research

Bring real YouTube data into Cursor for channel research, keyword discovery, competitive analysis, trends, transcripts, and more.

Connect vidIQ to Cursor
Cursor MCP Setup

How to Connect vidIQ to Cursor with MCP

Add vidIQ as a remote MCP server in Cursor in three steps.

  1. 1
    Click Add to Cursor and confirm the install when Cursor opens.
  2. 2
    Prefer to add it by hand? Open Customize > MCPs, or paste the configuration shown here into ~/.cursor/mcp.json (all projects) or .cursor/mcp.json (one project).
  3. 3
    Sign in with your vidIQ account when Cursor prompts you, then confirm vidIQ is enabled under Customize > MCPs.

Cursor mcp.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "vidIQ": {
      "url": "https://mcp.vidiq.com/mcp"
    }
  }
}
Add to Cursor

Only need read-only access? Create an API key in vidIQ Account Settings, set it as VIDIQ_API_KEY in your shell profile or system environment, restart Cursor, and add "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer ${env:VIDIQ_API_KEY}" } to the vidIQ entry.

Cursor MCP Prompts

Try These YouTube Prompts in Cursor

vidIQ MCP Credits & Tools

52 tools and counting

46 core tools below, plus 6 free utility tools

  • keyword_research

    Find keywords your competitors are sleeping on

  • outliers

    Spot videos that blew up for a reason

  • generate_clips

    Turn a long video into vertical clips

  • generate_thumbnail

    Generate a thumbnail from a prompt

  • generate_titles

    Generate high-CTR title ideas

  • subscriber_insights

    Find your best time to post and who else your fans watch

  • video_transcript

    Read any video without watching it

  • trending_videos

    See what formats are blowing up right now

Plus 6 free utility tools: credits balance, your connected channels, async job tracking, voice library, and feedback. Tool calls draw from your vidIQ plan’s shared credit pool.

Connect YouTube to Cursor

Use vidIQ as a YouTube MCP Server in Cursor

Connect vidIQ to Cursor through MCP and give your AI coding agent access to real YouTube data. Cursor can use vidIQ tools to research channels, compare competitors, find keyword opportunities, spot outlier videos, analyze comments, and pull video transcripts without leaving your workflow.

Ask Cursor things like:

  • Find low-competition YouTube keywords for this video idea.
  • Which channels in this niche are growing fastest right now?
  • Pull the transcript for this video and summarize the main claims.

Setup takes a few minutes. Add the vidIQ MCP server in Cursor, sign in with your vidIQ account, and your vidIQ tools will be available inside Cursor.

Cursor MCP: Common Questions

Click Add to Cursor on this page and confirm the install in Cursor, then sign in with your vidIQ account when Cursor prompts you. You can also add the vidIQ server URL yourself from Customize > MCPs or in ~/.cursor/mcp.json.

No. Cursor signs in to vidIQ with OAuth. If you only need read-only access, you can use an API key instead: set VIDIQ_API_KEY in your shell profile or system environment, restart Cursor, and add an Authorization header that reads it, for example "Bearer ${env:VIDIQ_API_KEY}".

Yes. Put the same configuration in .cursor/mcp.json at the project root instead of the global ~/.cursor/mcp.json.

Start Now

Give Cursor real YouTube data with vidIQ

Add the vidIQ MCP server, sign in with your vidIQ account, and start using YouTube data directly in Cursor.

Connect vidIQ to Cursor

Also works with Claude, ChatGPT, Perplexity, OpenClaw, Grok, Codex, Gemini CLI and any MCP-compatible tool. Available on every vidIQ plan, including Free.