Entra.Chat Podcast Server

npm version npm downloads MIT License

An MCP (Model Context Protocol) server for searching transcripts of Entra.Chat — Merill Fernando's Microsoft Entra podcast on YouTube. Ask your AI assistant about Entra ID features, community tools, and identity topics discussed on the show, and get answers with timestamped YouTube links that jump straight to the relevant moment.

Companion to entra-news-mcp (the written Entra.News newsletter archive) and microsoft-ai-roundup-mcp.

How it works

• Zero per-user infrastructure. Install via NPX; the transcript database (SQLite) is downloaded automatically from this repo's GitHub Releases on first run and cached locally (~/.entra-news-podcast-mcp/). Updates are checked weekly.
• Hybrid retrieval. BM25 keyword search (in-memory inverted index with Porter stemming — ideal for exact names like "PIM for Groups" or "Maester" in messy spoken-word transcripts) fused with OpenAI semantic vector search via Reciprocal Rank Fusion. No API key? Keyword search works out of the box.
• Timestamped deep links. Every search result links to youtube.com/watch?v=...&t=... so you can hear the discussion in context.
• Guest knowledge. Guests are extracted per episode with their profile links (LinkedIn, Twitter/X, GitHub, Bluesky) — ask "which episodes was X on?" or "who has been on the show?".
• Fresh weekly. A GitHub Action re-ingests the playlist every week and publishes an updated database release.

Installation

Requires Node.js 22+ (uses the built-in node:sqlite — no native dependencies).

Claude Desktop

Add to claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "entra-podcasts": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "entra-news-podcast-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "OPENAI_API_KEY": "sk-..."
      }
    }
  }
}

The OPENAI_API_KEY is optional — it enables semantic/hybrid search (embedding the query costs a fraction of a cent). Without it, BM25 keyword search is used.

Claude Code

claude mcp add entra-podcasts -- npx -y entra-news-podcast-mcp

VS Code (GitHub Copilot)

{
  "servers": {
    "entra-podcasts": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "entra-news-podcast-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Cursor

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "entra-podcasts": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "entra-news-podcast-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Tools

Tool	Description
search_entra_podcasts	Search all episode transcripts. Modes: hybrid (default, BM25 + semantic via RRF), semantic, keyword. Results include episode, guests, and timestamped YouTube links.
get_episode	Full episode by video_id, episode_number, or date — metadata, guests with profile links, chapters with timestamped links, and the complete transcript with [mm:ss] markers.
list_episodes	Browse the archive; filter by year, month, and/or guest name.
list_guests	Directory of all podcast guests with profile links, appearance counts, and latest appearance.
get_guest	One guest by name: profile links and every episode they appeared on.
find_tool_mentions	Community tools discussed on the show, with timestamped links to hear the discussion.

Example prompts

• "What did Merill and his guests say about PIM for Groups?"
• "Which episodes has Jane Doe been on? What's her LinkedIn?"
• "Find where Maester was discussed and give me the YouTube timestamp."
• "List the Entra.Chat episodes from March 2026."

Data & freshness

Source	Entra.Chat playlist on YouTube (@merillx)
Transcripts	YouTube captions (uploaded captions preferred, auto-generated otherwise)
Refresh	Weekly GitHub Action → new db-* release
Local cache	~/.entra-news-podcast-mcp/ (%USERPROFILE%\.entra-news-podcast-mcp\ on Windows) — update check at most every 7 days; delete the folder to force a fresh download
Runtime override	Set ENTRA_PODCAST_DB_PATH to use a local database file instead

Development

npm install
npm run build

# Ingest (requires yt-dlp on PATH: pipx install yt-dlp / winget install yt-dlp)
node dist/scripts/ingest.js --limit 2        # test with 2 videos
node dist/scripts/ingest.js                  # full playlist backfill
node dist/scripts/ingest.js --incremental    # only new videos
node dist/scripts/ingest.js --video <id>     # one video (re-ingests)
node dist/scripts/ingest.js --reextract      # rebuild guests + tool mentions from stored
                                             # data (no network) — after editing
                                             # guest-overrides.json or known-tools.ts
node dist/scripts/ingest.js --embed-missing  # embed chunks that have no embedding yet
                                             # (needs OPENAI_API_KEY; no YouTube access)

# Run the server against a local DB
ENTRA_PODCAST_DB_PATH=./entra-news-podcasts.db npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector node dist/src/index.js

Set OPENAI_API_KEY during ingest to generate embeddings (semantic search); without it the ingest still completes and BM25 keyword search works.

Guest extraction overrides

Guests are extracted heuristically from video titles/descriptions. Episodes the heuristics miss are listed at the end of each ingest run — correct them in scripts/lib/guest-overrides.json (keyed by video_id, entries fully replace extraction for that video) and apply with node dist/scripts/ingest.js --reextract (no re-download needed).

Manual database refresh (if YouTube blocks CI)

YouTube sometimes blocks caption downloads from datacenter IPs (BOT_BLOCKED in the workflow log). Consumers are unaffected — the last-good release stays latest.

Two mitigations are built in before falling back to a manual refresh:

• CI installs Deno, which yt-dlp requires as a JS runtime to solve YouTube's player challenges — without it, requests are far more likely to be flagged as bot traffic.
• The YTDLP_PROXY repository secret (set since 2026-07-21 to a residential proxy URL in http://user:pass@host:port form — note IPRoyal's dashboard shows host:port:user:pass, which must be rewritten) routes all yt-dlp traffic through that proxy. The same env var works for local ingest runs. If the proxy account runs out of traffic, top it up or clear the secret and refresh manually.

If CI is still blocked, refresh manually from a residential IP:

node dist/scripts/ingest.js --incremental
gh release create "db-$(date -u +%Y.%m.%d)-9999" \
  --repo darrenjrobinson/EntraNewsPodcastMCPServer \
  --title "Database Update (manual)" --latest \
  ./entra-news-podcasts.db

Release process (maintainer)

Code releases (v* tags) publish to npm (Trusted Publishing / OIDC, no tokens) and the MCP Registry (io.github.darrenjrobinson/entra-news-podcast) via .github/workflows/publish-mcp.yml:

1. Bump version in package.json and both version fields in server.json (CI enforces lockstep).
2. Commit, then git tag v0.x.y && git push origin main v0.x.y.

Database releases (db-* tags) are produced by the weekly workflow and never trigger an npm publish.

License

MIT © Darren Robinson