CueVote - The Interactive Jukebox
CueVote is a modern, community-driven social jukebox built for the YouTube era. It democratizes music selection by allowing everyone in the room to suggest videos and vote on the queue in real-time.
Whether you're hosting a house party, a dorm pre-drink, or just hanging out online with friends, CueVote ensures the best videos play next — decided by the crowd, not an algorithm.
Private use. CueVote is built for private gatherings. Playing third-party content in a public or commercial setting (bars, clubs, shops, events) generally requires licences that CueVote neither holds nor grants — see the Terms of Service and YouTube's own terms.
🚀 Core Features
🎧 Social Jukebox
- Democratic Queue: Users vote videos up (Like) or down (Dislike). The highest-rated videos jump to the top.
- Collaborative Suggestions: Anyone can search and add videos from YouTube.
- Real-Time Sync: Queue updates, votes, and playback state sync instantly across all devices.
🏛️ Lobby & Discovery
- Public & Private Channels: Create open rooms for everyone or password-protected private rooms for friends.
- Search & Filters: Easily find active parties or filter by your own created channels.
- Personalized Experience: Sign in with Google to track your history, favorite videos, and managed channels.
🧠 Smart Queue System
- Vote-Based Sorting: The queue dynamically reorders itself based on live votes.
- Auto-Refill (Auto-DJ): When the queue runs dry, the system intelligently picks videos from the room's history to keep the vibe going.
- Smart Replacement: If the queue is full, new high-quality suggestions can replace the lowest-voted track automatically (optional).
- Duplicate Prevention: Intelligent checks prevent the same video (or title) from being played too frequently.
📺 Playback Modes
- Host Mode (Venue/TV): The "Main Screen" experience. Connect a laptop, TV, or projector to play the music and video.
- Cinema Mode: Full-screen immersive experience.
- Venue Mode: Specialized view for TVs that shows the playlist/QR code instead of just the video.
- Guest Mode: Users join on their phones to view the queue, vote, and suggest without interrupting playback.
- Prelisten: Guests can privately preview a video on their own device before voting it up.
🛡️ Moderation & Controls
- Owner Powers:
- Skip/Pause/Seek: Full playback control.
- Force Play: Jump a specific video to "Now Playing" immediately.
- Banning: Ban specific videos from the session.
- Manual Approval: Switch to "Manual Mode" to review every suggestion before it hits the queue.
- System Integrity:
- Spam Protection: Rate limits and duplicate cooldowns.
- Content Filters: Option to restrict to "Music Only" categories or limit video duration.
📚 Channel Library
- Track History: The channel automatically remembers videos played in the past.
- Quick Add: Easily re-add previously played videos to the queue without searching.
🤖 AI & Automation (MCP)
- Model Context Protocol server: CueVote ships an MCP server (
cuevote-mcp/) so it can be driven from an AI assistant (Claude Desktop/Code, …).- Ops console: read-only insight (rooms, users, stats, retention health) + live moderation (skip, ban, approve, GDPR delete) for the operator, over SSH.
- AI DJ: an OAuth-protected remote mode ("Connect with CueVote") lets a user attach their AI to suggest songs, vote, and see what's playing — in their own name.
⚖️ Legal & Privacy
- GDPR Compliant: Users have full control to request account deletion and data removal directly within the app.
- Transparency: Dedicated Legal Center with Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, and Colophon.
- YouTube Compliance: Uses the official YouTube iFrame API to ensure creators get views and ad revenue (if applicable).
🛠️ Technical Stack
- Frontend: React, Tailwind CSS, Lucide Icons.
- Backend: Node.js, WebSocket (
ws), SQLite3. - Database: SQLite with WAL mode for high-performance, concurrent read/write operations.
- API: YouTube Data API v3 for robust video metadata verification.
- AI Integration: Model Context Protocol (MCP) server (
@modelcontextprotocol/sdk) — an ops console + an OAuth-based AI DJ. Seecuevote-mcp/.
📦 Deployment (Brief)
CueVote is ready to use at CueVote.com. For developers who wish to host their own instance:
- Clone the repo
- Install dependencies:
npm install(root),cd cuevote-server && npm install,cd cuevote-client && npm install - Configure
.env: Add yourYOUTUBE_API_KEYandGOOGLE_CLIENT_ID. - Build the client:
cd cuevote-client && npm run build. - Run the server:
cd cuevote-server && npm start(no build step — it runs plain Node).
See DEPLOYMENT.md for full instructions.
📜 License & Credits
Copyright © 2026 Julian Zienert — [email protected]
The source code of this project is licensed under the PolyForm Noncommercial License 1.0.0.
You are free to read, modify, and self-host for personal use. Commercial use of this code is prohibited. For direct use, visit cuevote.com.
CueVote — Where community meets rhythm — every vote changes the beat.