YouTube Posting

The posting service uploads approved videos to YouTube as Shorts and seeds engagement with an AI-generated first comment.

What It Does

Once a video has been approved in the review queue, this stage handles everything needed to publish it on YouTube: uploading the video file, setting optimized metadata (title, description, tags, category), flagging it as AI-generated content, and posting an engagement comment to seed discussion.

How It Works

1. Download video from Supabase Storage to a temp file
2. Get access token — exchange the stored refresh token for a short-lived OAuth access token
3. Upload to YouTube — resumable upload via YouTube Data API v3
4. Post engagement comment — AI-generated question to seed discussion
5. Update content record — store the YouTube video ID and posting timestamp

Metadata Optimization

Every piece of metadata is optimized for the Shorts algorithm:

Title

The hook (first 100 characters). Front-loaded for mobile — only about 40 characters are visible in the Shorts feed.

Description

{hook}

#Shorts {niche hashtags}

The full script is NOT included. It is invisible in the Shorts feed and wastes space.

Category

Niche-specific category IDs for better algorithmic matching:

Tags

Channel name + “Shorts” + “YouTube Shorts” + niche keywords. Trimmed to stay under YouTube’s 500-character limit.

Compliance Flags

• containsSyntheticMedia: true — Discloses AI-generated content (required by YouTube policy)
• selfDeclaredMadeForKids: false
• defaultLanguage: "en"

Engagement Comments

After posting, the system posts a first comment from the creator’s account to seed engagement. The comment is generated dynamically:

• AI-generated (GPT-4o-mini): Creates a contextual question based on the video’s hook and topic. One sentence, ends with a question mark, casual tone, no hashtags or emoji.
• Fallback: Static niche-specific questions if AI generation fails (e.g., “What do you think about this?” for general topics).

Posting Modes

Immediate Posting

Trigger posting for a specific content item right away from the content detail page or review queue.

Scheduled Posting

Set a scheduled_for timestamp on an approved content item. The hourly cron job checks for items where the scheduled time has passed and posts them automatically.

Batch Posting

The POST /pipeline/post-scheduled endpoint checks all approved items with a past scheduled_for timestamp and posts them in sequence.

Where to Find It

• Dashboard: Content detail page, Post button; or Review Queue, Approve and Post action
• API: POST /pipeline/post/{content_id} (immediate) or POST /pipeline/post-scheduled (batch/scheduled)

Configuration

Posting behavior is determined by the channel’s niche and the content’s metadata. There are no separate posting configuration fields — the system uses the channel name, niche, and content hook/script to generate all metadata dynamically.

Per-Channel YouTube Connection

Each dashboard channel connects to its own YouTube brand channel via OAuth. This allows you to run multiple channels posting to different YouTube accounts from a single deployment.

• Global credentials: YOUTUBE_CLIENT_ID and YOUTUBE_CLIENT_SECRET are shared across all channels — they come from a single Google Cloud project
• Per-channel tokens: Each channel stores its own youtube_refresh_token and youtube_channel_id in the database
• Brand channel picker: During the OAuth flow, Google shows a brand channel picker — select the correct brand channel for each dashboard channel
• Fallback behavior: If a channel has no per-channel credentials, the worker falls back to the global YOUTUBE_REFRESH_TOKEN environment variable

To connect a channel, go to the channel’s settings page, open the Publishing tab, and click Connect YouTube Channel. You’ll be redirected to Google to authorize and pick the target brand channel.

Dependencies

• YOUTUBE_CLIENT_ID — Google OAuth 2.0 client ID
• YOUTUBE_CLIENT_SECRET — Google OAuth 2.0 client secret
• YOUTUBE_REFRESH_TOKEN — Long-lived refresh token (global fallback, used when a channel has no per-channel credentials)
• OPENAI_API_KEY — For generating dynamic engagement comments