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YouTube Channel Search

RAG search within a YouTube channel.

What it does

Searches within one channel. Narrower and more useful than searching all of YouTube when you already know whose material you care about.

What you need

API key from YouTube (Google). Google Cloud console → APIs & Services → Credentials, and the YouTube Data API v3 has to be enabled on that project or every search comes back refused.

Connecting it

Credentials belong to one project, not to your workspace and not to you. A system built for one client never runs on another client's account, and a package handed to a business runs on theirs.

  1. Open the project and stay on the Visual Editor tab.
  2. Open the Tools & Integrations rail on the right.
  3. Find this tool, open it, and paste the credential.

To change it later, open the same panel — you can leave the key blank to keep the stored one and change only the other field.

Using it in a step

An Action step runs one tool with the arguments you type, exactly as written, with no model involved — so it costs nothing per run and behaves the same every time. Add one from the canvas toolbar, choose YouTube Channel Search, and fill in:

Field Required What goes in it
channel_id yes Starts with UC, from the channel's URL — not its display name.
query no Optional. Narrows to videos matching this.
count no How many videos.

Values can carry results forward: {{previous}} is the step before, and {{row:column}} is a column from the row this run is about when the trigger fans out.

Press Try it to run the step on its own before committing to a whole sequence.

Using it with an agent

Tick YouTube Channel Search on any agent that should be able to call it, and the agent decides when to. Use an agent when the judgement matters and an Action step when the certainty does.

A worked example

An agency monitors a client's own channel and reports which recent uploads mention a product line.

When it goes wrong

A channel id is not a channel name. It usually starts UC. Take it from the channel's URL rather than its display name.

See also