YouTube Channel Upload Delta via Official RSS

Monitor new public uploads from known YouTube channels through the official public Atom feed. The first successful run creates a free baseline. Later runs emit only NEW_UPLOAD or meaningful UPLOAD_METADATA_CHANGED records.

Who it is for

Automation builders, media researchers, creator teams, and data pipelines that already know which channels they follow and need cheap scheduled upload signals.

Supported inputs

• A direct UC... channel ID.
• https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC....
• https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UC....

Handles, usernames, custom channel URLs, watch pages, search, transcripts, comments, media downloads, InnerTube, and the YouTube Data API are intentionally unsupported. An unresolved input produces an unsupported_input diagnostic without a request or charge.

Output and semantics

Every row is a baseline, committed change, or diagnostic. Changes contain stable video/channel IDs, source URL, previous/current video evidence, changed fields, and observation time. Missing source fields remain null. Output follows deterministic channel and video identity order.

• Baseline: stores current feed entries; free.
• NEW_UPLOAD: a video ID appears that was absent from the prior successful observation.
• UPLOAD_METADATA_CHANGED: title, stable timestamps, or author/channel fields changed.
• Feed disappearance is not an event. RSS is a rolling recent window, not complete history; schedule frequently enough.

Raw XML hashes never create events. Invalid channels, failures, blocked responses, retries, diagnostics, duplicates, baselines, and unchanged checks are free. Proposed PPE: $0.003 per successfully committed upload change.

Reliability and limits

Requests use only the official /feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=... surface. Transactions have timeouts, streamed byte caps, redirect limits, bounded retries, and concurrency limits. Redirects must remain on the same surface. HTTP 404 is invalid_channel; HTTP 403/429 or challenge evidence is blocked, never empty.

Defaults: 50 channels, 15 entries/channel, concurrency 10, 10-second timeout, one retry, 1 MB wire and 2 MB decoded caps.

{"channels":["UC_x5XG1OV2P6uZZ5FSM9Ttw","https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLA_DiR1FfKNvjuUpBHmylQ"],"monitorKey":"daily-watch"}

Use the same monitor key for scheduled repeats. See the owner runbook and private validation plan in docs/.