Every 30 minutes
Write descriptions, tags and chapters for new uploads
Each new video gets an AI-written description, tags and timestamped chapters from its captions, and you get an email showing what changed.
- Runs
- Every 30 minutes
- Apps
- YouTube
- AI
- Yes, uses the built-in AI allowance
- Access
- OAuth youtube.force-ssl (read+write)
Send this to your assistant
Create a ClickRuntime automation: every 30 minutes, check my channel for new uploads, read the captions, have AI write a description, 10 tags and timestamped chapters, update the video and email me the result.
First time? Adding ClickRuntime to your assistant takes about two minutes.
Why use it
Why teams use this automation
Uploading a video is only half the job. The description, tags and chapters are what help YouTube show it to the right people, and they are the part creators skimp on after hours of editing. A video goes live with a one-line description and no timestamps, so it is harder to find, and viewers cannot skip to the section they need.
Every 30 minutes, your uploads playlist is checked for videos not yet processed. For each new one, captions are downloaded, and ClickRuntime's built-in AI writes a description, a set of tags and timestamped chapters. The video is then updated on YouTube, and you receive an email with the result.
Educators, tutorial channels and podcasters who publish long videos with several clear sections gain the most. Metadata that creators usually skip arrives within the first hour after upload.
What you get out of it
Chapters improve watch time
Timestamps let viewers jump to the part they need, and chapters appear in search results, which can bring in viewers looking for a specific step. Viewers stay longer when they can reach the exact moment they came for.
Descriptions stop being an afterthought
Each video gets a full description built from what was actually said, which gives YouTube more text to understand and helps your video appear for relevant searches. A full description is also a place for links, and gives YouTube more words to match to searches.
Tags are consistent across the channel
Using a similar approach for every video avoids the random mix of tags that builds up when each is typed in a hurry after editing. Consistency across hundreds of videos helps YouTube understand what your channel covers.
It happens soon after upload
Because the check runs every 30 minutes, the metadata is in place within the first hours, when YouTube is deciding how to test the video with viewers. That early window is when YouTube tests a video with a first group of viewers.
You get a record in your inbox
The email shows what was written, so you can correct a chapter title or a wrong term by editing the video in Studio. Any corrections you make are quick, because the email tells you exactly what was written.
How it works
What happens, step by step
Every 30 minutes, ClickRuntime checks your YouTube channel for new uploads. Videos it has already handled are skipped.
For each new video it downloads the captions.
AI reads the captions and writes a description with timestamped chapters, plus up to 10 tags.
The new description and tags are saved on the video, and you get an email showing the chapters and tags it added.
Before it runs live
- Connect YouTube
What you get
Build your own
Need it to work differently?
Your own rules
Conditions, thresholds, filters and exceptions, written the way you'd explain them to a colleague.
Any number of apps
One automation can read from one app and update several others. Over 248 apps are ready, and anything with an API works too.
AI where it helps
Summaries, classification, extraction and drafts use ClickRuntime's built-in AI, with no extra key.
On a schedule or on each event
Runs as often as every 5 minutes, or the moment an app sends an event, and keeps track of what it already handled.
Changes you can ask for
- Act only on the items that match your own rules, and skip the rest
- Change what the AI looks for, or how it writes the result
- Add another app, for example also send it to Slack
- Combine it with other YouTube steps into one automation
Under the hood
The code that runs this automation
from clickruntime import on_trigger, credentials, http, state, ai, notify, report_fetched
YT = "https://www.googleapis.com/youtube/v3"
@on_trigger
def run(event):
h = {"Authorization": f"Bearer {credentials.connection('google', 'work')}"}
uploads = http.get(f"{YT}/channels", headers=h, params={"part": "contentDetails", "mine": "true"}).json()["items"][0]["contentDetails"]["relatedPlaylists"]["uploads"]
items = http.get(f"{YT}/playlistItems", headers=h, params={"part": "contentDetails", "playlistId": uploads, "maxResults": 10}).json()["items"]
done = state.get("done") or []
new = [i["contentDetails"]["videoId"] for i in items if i["contentDetails"]["videoId"] not in done]
report_fetched(len(new))
if not new:
return {"summary": "Nothing new"}
for vid in new:
caps = http.get(f"{YT}/captions", headers=h, params={"part": "snippet", "videoId": vid}).json()["items"]
if not caps:
continue
srt = http.get(f"{YT}/captions/{caps[0]['id']}", headers=h, params={"tfmt": "srt"}).text[:20000]
meta = ai.generate(srt, system="From these captions write a YouTube description with timestamped chapters, and up to 10 tags.",
json_schema={"type": "object", "properties": {"description": {"type": "string"}, "tags": {"type": "array", "items": {"type": "string"}}}},
max_output_tokens=900).json
video = http.get(f"{YT}/videos", headers=h, params={"part": "snippet", "id": vid}).json()["items"][0]
snippet = {**video["snippet"], "description": meta["description"], "tags": meta["tags"]}
http.put(f"{YT}/videos", headers=h, params={"part": "snippet"}, json={"id": vid, "snippet": snippet})
notify.email_me(f"Updated: {snippet['title']}", f"{meta['description']}\n\nTags: {', '.join(meta['tags'])}")
done.append(vid)
state.set("done", done[-500:])
return {"updated": len(new)}FAQ
Common questions
Does it need captions on the video?
Will it overwrite a description I wrote myself?
Are the chapters accurate?
What permissions does it need?
Does it need AI?
How many runs does it use?
Can I change how it works?
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