Performs a YouTube search using SearchAPI.site. Requires a search query and your SearchAPI.site API key. Returns formatted YouTube search results including video titles, thumbnails, descriptions, and links. Supports optional parameters for pagination, sorting, filtering by date and duration.
AI agents call search_youtube to retrieve information from SearchAPI MCP Server without modifying anything — typically the context-gathering step in research, monitoring, and reporting workflows, before the agent takes action elsewhere.
This tool retrieves and queries publicly available YouTube search data. It has no capability to modify data, execute code, delete content, or move money. The optional parameters (pagination, sorting, filtering) are all read-only query refinements. The only security considerations are API key exposure and potential information disclosure of search results, neither of which elevates it beyond Read category.
From the tool's definition Tool performs a YouTube search and returns formatted results including video titles, thumbnails, descriptions, and links.
Documented attack patterns abuse exactly the kind of access search_youtube gives an agent:
PolicyLayer is an MCP gateway — it sits between your AI agents and SearchAPI MCP Server, and nothing reaches the server without passing your rules. This is the rule we recommend for search_youtube:
{
"version": "1",
"default": "deny",
"tools": {
"search_youtube": {}
}
}search_youtube is read-only, so it stays allowed — but everything else on the server is denied unless you say otherwise.
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Performs a YouTube search using SearchAPI.site. Requires a search query and your SearchAPI.site API key. Returns formatted YouTube search results including video titles, thumbnails, descriptions, and links. Supports optional parameters for pagination, sorting, filtering by date and duration. It is categorised as a Read tool in the SearchAPI MCP Server MCP Server, which means it retrieves data without modifying state.
Register the SearchAPI MCP Server MCP server in PolicyLayer and add a rule for search_youtube: allow, deny, rate-limit, or require approval. Point your MCP client at the PolicyLayer proxy URL and the rule is enforced on every call, before it reaches SearchAPI MCP Server. Nothing to install.
search_youtube is a Read tool with low risk. Read-only tools are generally safe to allow by default.
Yes. Add a rate_limit block to the search_youtube rule in your PolicyLayer policy. For example, setting max: 10 and window: 60 limits the tool to 10 calls per minute. Rate limits are tracked per agent session and reset automatically.
Set action: deny in the PolicyLayer policy for search_youtube. The AI agent will receive a policy violation error and cannot call the tool. You can also include a reason field to explain why the tool is blocked.
search_youtube is provided by the SearchAPI MCP Server MCP server (mrgoonie/searchapi-mcp-server). PolicyLayer sits as a proxy in front of this server to enforce policies before tool calls reach the server.
Start from SearchAPI MCP Server, add the rest of your stack, and see everything your agents can call. Then put policy on all of it.
Free to start. No card required.
3 SearchAPI MCP Server tools catalogued and risk-classified — across an index of 43,000+ MCP servers.