openclip-transcription

OpenClip: transcription

transcribe turns a video or audio file into a time-coded transcript. It is FREE, it needs an OpenClip account but no subscription and no credits. Output formats: JSON (structured, with timings), SRT, and VTT.

Setup (once)

OpenClip is a remote MCP server at https://openclip.app/mcp. Sign in with your OpenClip account when the OAuth prompt appears, there is no API key to copy.

• Claude Code: claude mcp add --transport http openclip https://openclip.app/mcp, then /mcp to authorize.
• Claude Desktop / web: Settings, Connectors, "Add custom connector", paste the URL, sign in.
• Cursor (.cursor/mcp.json): { "mcpServers": { "openclip": { "url": "https://openclip.app/mcp" } } }
• Header-only clients: mint an MCP token at openclip.app/settings/connect and connect to https://openclip.app/mcp/key with Authorization: Bearer <token>.

Sanity check: call get_account.

The loop

1. Upload. create_upload(filename, content_type) returns an id and an upload_url. PUT the raw bytes to upload_url, then pass the id as video. Do NOT call complete_upload, that starts the paid clipping pipeline. Free tools read the uploaded file directly. Videos already in list_videos work as inputs too.
2. Transcribe. transcribe(video, language?, diarize?).
   • language - omit to auto-detect. Set it when you already know the language and want to stop a short or noisy clip being misdetected.
   • diarize - defaults to true, labels who is speaking. Turn it off for single-speaker audio to keep the output clean.
3. Poll. Returns a tool_job hashid. Poll get_tool_job_status(tool_job) every 5 to 10 seconds. queued / processing are in flight, completed returns permanent CDN outputs URLs (one per format: json, srt, vtt), failed returns error. Most jobs finish inside a minute or two.
4. Read the output. Fetch the JSON output for programmatic work (segments with start and end times, speaker labels). Hand the user the SRT or VTT URL when they want a subtitle file.

Two different transcript tools

Do not mix these up:

• transcribe - the FREE tool. Works on any file you upload. This skill.
• get_transcript - reads the transcript of a video that already went through the PAID clipping pipeline. Supports start_ms / end_ms windows at sentence or word level. Use it when you already have a clipping job_id, not for a fresh upload.

Rules

• Always poll. Transcription is async, it never returns the text synchronously.
• Times are milliseconds.
• Output URLs are permanent CDN links, not signed or expiring.
• Free usage is rate limited per day with a per-file size cap. The error text explains how to lift a limit.

Example prompts to actions

• "Transcribe this interview" - create_upload, PUT bytes, transcribe(video), poll, return the transcript.
• "I need an SRT for this video" - same, then hand back the srt output URL.
• "Who said what in this meeting recording?" - transcribe(video, diarize=true), poll, read the JSON output and group segments by speaker.
• "Pull the best quotes out of this talk" - transcribe, poll, read the JSON, then select quotes with their time codes.
• "It is in Dutch, transcribe it" - transcribe(video, language="nl"), poll.

Related

To then cut the video at those time codes, see openclip-video-editing (edit_video with operation="trim"). To find the moments worth cutting automatically, see openclip-clipping.