Find answers to all Good Tape MCP questions

MCP stands for Model Context Protocol and is an open-source standard for connecting AI tools to external systems, like your Good Tape archive.

An MCP server exposes data and tools over the Model Context Protocol so AI tools can use them. Good Tape runs an MCP server, so your favorite AI tools can connect to your transcription archive.

The MCP client is the AI tool you use: Claude, ChatGPT, Mistral, and others. The client connects to one or more MCP servers to access data during your conversation.

– List your transcriptions
– Search across your archive
– Pull a full transcript
– Pull a summary
– Pull notes

It’s a connection between your Good Tape archive and any AI tool that supports the Model Context Protocol. Instead of copying and pasting transcripts into an AI tool, the tool can reach into your archive directly. Searching, retrieving, and reasoning over your transcripts in the same conversation.

It means your AI tool (Claude, ChatGPT, Mistral, …) can access your Good Tape transcripts as part of a conversation. You can ask it to find a quote, summarize an interview, pull action items from a meeting, or compare what multiple sources said, all without leaving the tool.

The Good Tape MCP can only read your transcripts. It can’t edit, delete, or change anything in your Good Tape transcript, archive and account.

Only your own transcripts, summaries, and notes in your Good Tape archive. It cannot see other users’ or team members’ content. It also can’t edit, delete, or change anything in your archive.

Yes, it’s off by default. You stay in control of whether, when, and where you connect it. You decide to opt in. No third-party AI tool has access to your Good Tape archive unless you connect it yourself, and you can revoke access at any time on the settings page.

Good Tape itself stays just as private and secure. The MCP is opt-in, and nothing leaves Good Tape unless you actively connect it to your AI tool of choice. That said, if you connect LLMs and AI tools via MCP, their privacy, data residency, and training terms apply. We recommend reviewing those before connecting if you are in doubt.

Absolutely. You’re in control. If you don’t connect the Good Tape MCP, nothing changes. Your archive stays entirely within Good Tape.

Once your transcripts are seen by an external AI tool, Good Tape has no control over how that provider handles the data. Each AI tool has its own data-use and training policies. Many providers don’t train on your inputs by default on paid or business plans and offer training opt-outs. We recommend checking the privacy, data residency, and training terms of the tool (and the specific plan) you connect to.

That depends on your own editorial and legal guidelines. The Good Tape MCP is designed to opt in. Good Tape itself stays as secure as always, but connecting to a third-party AI tool means your transcripts pass through that third-party provider’s systems, which may not meet the confidentiality requirements for sensitive source material. If in doubt, we recommend checking the privacy, data residency, and training terms of the tool (and your specific plan) you connect to.

The Good Tape MCP is included on Free Trial, Pro, and Business at no additional cost while the feature is in beta. After beta, extra costs might apply. But you will hear any update on this from us first.

No, the Good Tape MCP is not available on the Free plan. You can start a free trial or upgrade to Pro to get MCP access.

Each team member connects the Good Tape MCP individually, and the AI tool will only have access to that person’s own transcripts. Not all archives of the wider team or organization.

Yes, you’ll need to be logged in to Good Tape to authenticate the MCP connection.

When you connect the Good Tape MCP from your AI tool, you’re sent to Good Tape’s login page in your browser. You log in with your normal Good Tape credentials and approve the connection, and a secure token is issued to your AI tool. That token authorizes every request the tool makes on your behalf. No passwords are ever shared with the AI provider.

You can disconnect the Good Tape MCP from all your AI tools in your Good Tape account settings: Settings → Account → Manage MCP (Beta) → Revoke MCP client access

Each team member connects individually from their own account.

Good Tape hosts the MCP server on our own infrastructure, in the EU.

When the AI tool requests a specific transcript, the full text is sent, including speaker labels and timestamps. When it uses the search tool, only the matching excerpts are returned, not your entire archive. The AI tool decides what to request based on your prompt.

Good Tape doesn’t create or store copies of your transcripts outside our own infrastructure. But when the AI tool retrieves a transcript, it passes through that provider’s systems, and Good Tape has no control over what happens to it there. We recommend checking privacy, data residency, and training terms of the tool (and the specific plan) you connect.

There are step-by-step setup guides available for ChatGPT, Claude, Mistral, and Perplexity. Send us a message if you need help connecting to another AI tool.

The Good Tape MCP works with any tool that supports the Model Context Protocol. We’ve tested it with Claude, ChatGPT, Mistral, Perplexity, and Lovable.

Here are some of the things you can do from a single prompt once your archive is connected:

– Chat with your transcripts
– Find a half-remembered quote across all your transcripts
– Draft an article from one or more recorded interviews
– Generate a summary tailored to your exact needs
– Pull key decisions and next steps from a meeting recording
– Compare what multiple sources said about the same topic
– Ask open-ended questions across your entire archive

Journalists surface quotes across interviews, cross-reference sources, and speed up drafting.

Researchers analyze patterns across many interviews or focus groups and generate structured summaries.

Academics search recorded lectures or fieldwork notes and pull relevant material for papers.

Podcasters pull highlights, write show notes, and find past moments on a topic for social posts.

Teams summarize meetings, capture decisions, and stay aligned without being in the same room.

No. Good Tape’s server sees the tool calls (e.g. “search”, “get_note”, “get_summary”, “get_transcription”, and “list_transcriptions”), not your prompts or transcripts. It never sees your full conversation with the AI tool or the tool’s responses.

That depends entirely on your AI tool and your settings. Most AI tools (Claude, ChatGPT, …) do not retain data from MCP tool calls beyond the active conversation, but you should check your provider’s data retention policy to be sure.

Yes. All communication between your AI tool and Good Tape’s MCP server uses HTTPS (TLS encryption).

Yes, Good Tape is GDPR compliant. And no, the MCP doesn’t change how Good Tape stores or processes your data. When you choose to send transcripts to a third-party AI tool, that provider’s own data-processing terms apply. We recommend reviewing them before connecting.

Good Tape stores your transcripts and data in the EU, and the Good Tape MCP server runs on the same infrastructure. Once a transcript is sent to a third-party AI tool, that provider’s data-residency policies apply.

Yes. The search tool runs a semantic search across your entire archive, regardless of size, and returns the most relevant results.

Yes. The Good Tape MCP serves whatever text Good Tape has transcribed, in any language. Search also works across languages.

Text only. The Good Tape MCP does not expose audio files.

Yes. The Good Tape MCP reads directly from your live Good Tape archive. As soon as a transcription is complete, it’s available to the AI tool.

AI tools can make mistakes. Misinterpreting, summarizing inaccurately, or inventing details. Always verify critical facts against the original transcript. The MCP gives the tool access to the raw text, but its interpretation is its own.

Each transcript returned by the MCP includes its title and ID, and most AI tools will cite which one they used. You can also ask the tool to show its sources.

It’s possible. Good Tape provides speaker labels in the text, but the AI tool may occasionally confuse speakers, especially with similar names or where diarization was uncertain. Always double-check direct attributions.

The Good Tape MCP is only included in Free Trial, Pro & Business, so you’ll lose access when you downgrade to Free.

Yes. The Good Tape MCP authorizes every request against your Good Tape account, so once it’s cancelled the token stops working and no AI tool can access your archive.

If someone gets into your AI tool account while the MCP connection is active, they could potentially access your transcripts through it. You can revoke Good Tape MCP access at any time from your Good Tape settings to cut that off immediately.

Yes. The Good Tape MCP uses OAuth tokens that expire; when one does, you’ll re-authenticate. The connection doesn’t stay open indefinitely.

You save the manual step of copy-pasting or exporting and uploading .txt files. Otherwise it’s the same. You feed your raw transcript data to an external tool.

For individual transcripts, you save the manual step of copy-pasting or exporting and uploading .txt files. Otherwise it’s the same. You feed your raw transcript data to an external tool. But it’s a new way to search through and reason over your entire archive within one conversation. That used to be impossible manually.