Connect YouTube and start agents from new videos or comments

1. Choose how to connect

In the builder, open Connected apps and find YouTube. It offers two doors. Sign in with Google is the full one: Google asks which account to use (and which channel, if you manage channels as a Brand Account), and the agent can then read public data, read your own channel's analytics, and act on your channel - upload a video from a link, change a title, description, tags, or privacy, set a thumbnail, reply to or post a comment - each of those only after you approve it. Add key is the light one: a Google Cloud API key reads public data only - channel numbers, recent uploads, one video's numbers, public comments - and can never post, upload, or read analytics.

YouTube's sign-in is its own Sign in with Google, separate from the one that connects Google Calendar, Google Sheets, Gmail, and Google Tasks. Google does not allow both sets of permissions in one consent, so connecting Google for your calendar never connects YouTube, and the other way round. Disconnecting one leaves the other in place.

2. If you chose the key: create it in the Google Cloud console

Open the Google Cloud console and pick a project (a new one is fine; the free tier is enough). Under APIs & Services, open the Library, search for YouTube Data API v3, and press Enable. Then open Credentials, choose Create credentials, then API key, and copy the key - it starts with AIza and is 39 characters long. Google recommends restricting the key so it can only call the YouTube Data API v3; do that from the key's edit page. Keep it private: anyone holding it spends your project's quota.

Official docs: get an API key for the YouTube Data API

Google Cloud console: Credentials

Back in Amistio, press Add key on YouTube, paste it, and press Check it works. Amistio sends the key only to www.googleapis.com, stores it encrypted in your vault, and never shows it again after you save it.

3. Start an agent from new videos or comments

Both doors support the two YouTube triggers; the block editor (under Advanced on the agent page) lists them under YouTube, and the agent page describes the one in use in plain words. New video on a channel starts a run each time a channel publishes a public video. New comment starts a run for each new public top-level comment on the channel's videos, or on one video when you give its link; replies do not start runs. For the channel, paste the channel link from your browser (youtube.com/@handle or youtube.com/channel/UC...), the @handle, or the channel id. The first check only takes note of what is already there, so old videos and comments never flood in.

YouTube has no webhook for these, so Amistio checks for you every five minutes. Each check costs 1 quota unit from YouTube's free daily allowance of 10,000 units per Google Cloud project - about 300 units a day per trigger - and the usual reads cost 1 to 3 units, an upload 1,600, other changes 50.

Official docs: quota costs per call

4. Pick a recipe or build your own

• YouTube channel pulse - every morning, your channel's subscriber, view, and video counts, how the newest uploads are doing, and what the latest comments are about, on your phone.
• YouTube script studio - give the agent a topic, or let it pick one that fits your channel, and it writes ready-to-record scripts with titles, description, and tags. It never posts anything.
• Your own agent - the connector page lists every YouTube operation: channel numbers, recent videos, one video's numbers, recent comments, an analytics report, and - with the sign-in and your approval - upload, update, thumbnail, reply, and comment.

Video titles, descriptions, and comments are other people's words. Agents treat them as data to summarize, never as instructions to follow, and nothing here is sent, posted, or uploaded until you approve that exact step.