watch-cli MCP server

@sonpiaz/watch-cli-mcp

MCP (Model Context Protocol) stdio server that exposes watch-cli as a callable tool.

Watch any social video → get an architecture diagram, working component, runnable notebook, or step-by-step cheat sheet — automatically.

A single MCP server reaches every MCP-capable agent runtime — Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, OpenClaw, hermes-agent, Cline, Continue.dev, Windsurf, Zed, Codex, Kiro, VS Code Copilot — without per-IDE plugin work. This package wraps watch-cli so any of them can call it through one channel.

Prerequisites

• Node.js >= 18.

• The watch CLI installed and on PATH. Install with:

  curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sonpiaz/watch-cli/main/install.sh | bash
  

The MCP server shells out to watch; it does not bundle the CLI.

Install

npm install -g @sonpiaz/watch-cli-mcp

Or run on demand via npx:

npx -y @sonpiaz/watch-cli-mcp

The binary is watch-cli-mcp. It reads JSON-RPC on stdin, writes JSON-RPC on stdout, and logs to stderr.

Tool

One tool is registered: watch.

Input schema:

{
  "type": "object",
  "properties": {
    "url": {
      "type": "string",
      "format": "uri",
      "description": "A social video URL. Supported: YouTube, X / Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, Vimeo, Reddit, Facebook."
    },
    "frames": {
      "type": "integer",
      "minimum": 1,
      "maximum": 64,
      "description": "Number of evenly-spaced frames to extract. Default 8."
    }
  },
  "required": ["url"],
  "additionalProperties": false
}

Output: the v1 JSON object from docs/output-schema.md, passed through verbatim. Read the schema for the field reference.

Error mapping

CLI exit	MCP response
0	Tool result with the v1 JSON as content[0].text.
2	InternalError, message includes tag=missing-dep:<bin>.
3 download-auth / download-region	InvalidParams, message includes the tag — caller can recover with cookies or a different URL.
3 download-network / download-other	InternalError, message includes the tag.
4 (partial success)	Tool result with isError: false. Frames populated, transcript null, exit_code: 4 in the JSON payload. Caller branches on obj.exit_code === 4.
64	InvalidParams, message includes tag=usage-error.
1 / other	InternalError, message includes the CLI stderr tail (≤ 1 KB).

Tags always ride in the MCP error message field so callers can grep for the same tag=... token they would see in CLI stderr.

Client configuration

Claude Desktop

Config path:

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
• Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
• Linux: ~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

Merge into the existing mcpServers object:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "watch-cli": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@sonpiaz/watch-cli-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Restart Claude Desktop after editing.

Cursor

Config path: .cursor/mcp.json (project-scoped) or ~/.cursor/mcp.json (user-global). Same mcpServers object shape as Claude Desktop:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "watch-cli": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@sonpiaz/watch-cli-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

hermes-agent

Config path: optional-skills/mcp.json inside the hermes-agent install, or ~/.hermes-agent/mcp.json user-global. Same mcpServers shape as above.

Other MCP clients

Any MCP-capable agent that accepts an npx command will work with the snippet above. Substitute the client's config path; the command / args pair is portable.

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/sonpiaz/watch-cli
cd watch-cli/mcp-server
npm install
npm run build
node dist/index.js

License

MIT. © 2026 Son Piaz.