Post a video to YouTube
post_to_youtubePublish a finished video to your connected YouTube channel. Choose unlisted (ad-ready link), public (channel live), or private; schedule with publishAt and set category to match your ad. Control subscriber notifications explicitly.
Instructions
Publish a finished video to the brand’s connected YouTube channel. Pass a Hermoso render URL (or an upload_file url for a local/external file). DEFAULTS TO UNLISTED (link-only — not on the channel, not searchable, but shareable by link AND usable as a YouTube/Google ad). Pass privacy:"public" to put it ON the channel (a public publish — confirm with the user first) or privacy:"private" for eyes-only. Do NOT use "private" for anything meant to run as an ad — private videos CANNOT be used as ads; unlisted is the ad-ready setting. SCHEDULE it with publishAt, FILE it under the right categoryId (the default 22 "People & Blogs" is wrong for most ads), SUBSCRIBER NOTIFICATIONS FOLLOW PRIVACY — a public publish announces the video to the channel’s subscribers (YouTube’s own default), while unlisted/private uploads stay quiet; pass notifySubscribers explicitly to override either way. Needs a connected YouTube channel (Settings ▸ Connectors ▸ YouTube).
Input Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| hook | No | WHAT ANGLE THIS POST IS BUILT ON — the single most valuable field here, and the only moment it can ever be recorded. post_performance groups on it to answer "which hooks work", and it needs 5 posts sharing ONE hook before it will call anything a winner, so REUSE THE SAME WORDING across a campaign instead of rephrasing it every time. Best of all, pass a hook id from list_hooks (e.g. "direct_callout", "mid_problem", "before_after") — those fold onto a stable key however they are spelled, so a whole brand accumulates evidence on one row. Your own wording is fine too; it just only groups when you repeat it exactly. Omitting it means this post can never vote on which hook works. | |
| tags | No | up to 30 tags | |
| title | No | video title (≤100 chars) | |
| privacy | No | default unlisted (anyone-with-link, ad-ready); public = live + searchable on the channel (confirm first); private = eyes-only (cannot run as an ad) | |
| subject | No | WHAT THIS POST IS ABOUT — the product, feature, offer or theme (e.g. "winter coat", "free trial", "founder story"). The second grouping axis in post_performance. Same rule as hook: reuse the exact wording so posts about one subject land in one group. | |
| videoUrl | Yes | the video to post — a Hermoso render URL or an upload_file url | |
| publishAt | No | SCHEDULE the publish — ISO 8601, e.g. "2026-09-01T15:00:00Z", and it must be in the future. YouTube only allows this on a PRIVATE video and makes it PUBLIC at that moment, so pass privacy:"private" (or leave privacy unset) — asking for a scheduled "unlisted" or "public" post is refused rather than half-honoured. | |
| categoryId | No | YouTube category id, NUMERIC — default "22" (People & Blogs), which is wrong for most ads. 1 Film & Animation · 2 Autos & Vehicles · 10 Music · 15 Pets & Animals · 17 Sports · 19 Travel & Events · 20 Gaming · 22 People & Blogs · 23 Comedy · 24 Entertainment · 25 News & Politics · 26 Howto & Style · 27 Education · 28 Science & Technology · 29 Nonprofits & Activism. The assignable set is region-specific, so the value is forwarded as given and YouTube has the last word. | |
| description | No | video description (≤5000 chars) | |
| notifySubscribers | No | THE DEFAULT FOLLOWS PRIVACY. privacy:"public" NOTIFIES the channel's subscribers — that is YouTube's own default and normally what someone publishing publicly wants. privacy:"unlisted" and "private" do NOT: the video is not on the channel, so announcing it is nonsense, and a blast to somebody's whole subscriber list cannot be undone. A scheduled publish (publishAt) is PRIVATE at upload, so it does not notify either — pass true to announce one. An explicit value ALWAYS wins in both directions: true announces an unlisted/private upload, false publishes publicly and quietly. The reply reports which way it went and why. |