Search YouTube for a topic phrase and return videos on small channels that hugely outperform the channel's subscriber base and its own recent uploads — evidence the FORMAT drove the views (replicable by a new channel), not an existing audience. Defaults encode the Icon Method criteria: ≥100K views, channel ≤100K subs, ≥5:1 views:subs, uploaded within the last year. Costs ~110-130 YouTube API quota units per call (free daily quota: 10,000).

Fetch what makes an outlier video's format copyable: duration, chapters (parsed from the description), tags, and the transcript. Icon Method verification step: extract the structure, don't guess it. Costs 1 YouTube API quota unit (transcript is fetched outside the API at zero quota and may be unavailable for some videos).

Fetch a video's top comments (relevance-ordered) plus simple demand metrics: how many ask questions and how many use demand phrasing ('please make...', 'part 2', 'how do you...'). Icon Method verification step: comments prove the topic has unmet demand, not just views. Costs 1 YouTube API quota unit.

Run the outlier search once per niche by substituting each niche into a phrase template (e.g. "beginner mistakes {niche}" across ['sourdough', 'bonsai', 'leathercraft']) and rank the hits across all niches. Answers: which hobby cluster has a replicable breakout format right now? EXPENSIVE: each niche costs a full search (~110-130 quota units), so an 8-niche sweep uses ~10% of the 10,000-unit daily free quota.