From YouTube upload to reviewed draft

I run Aloft and Away, a travel publishing business with a website and a YouTube channel. Each new video needs a page on the website. This is the small tool I use to start that page, and the rules it follows.

My rule for automation is AI drafts, you decide. In this workflow most of the draft does not need AI at all, because the details are already on YouTube. Nothing reaches the public site until a person publishes it.

Travel and hospitality businesses that post video regularly (tours, stays, places, updates) and want each new upload to reach their website as a draft for review, rather than being copied across by hand.

It is also for design, brand and web agencies who want to see how I approach automation, review and failure before bringing me in.

• A new video becomes a draft. Its details arrive filled in, so the editor starts from something rather than a blank page.
• Nothing goes live without a person. The tool only ever creates drafts.
• No duplicates. Importing the same video twice should not make two entries.
• Problems are visible. When something goes wrong, the editor sees a plain message, not silence.

aloftandaway.com runs on EmDash, an open source content management system built on Astro, hosted on Cloudflare. I added an editorial plugin to its admin, built by AI agents using the latest frontier models, with me directing the work. One of its tools is Import from YouTube: a page in the admin with one button,Import latest upload. When an editor clicks it, the tool:

• asks YouTube for the channel's recent uploads and picks the newest one anyone can watch, skipping private videos, premieres and live streams
• reads that video's public details: title, description, thumbnail and, where set, the recording date
• checks whether the video already has an entry on the site
• creates a draft video entry with the title, the description as paragraphs with working links, the video's address and the thumbnail
• opens the new draft in the editor

It does not run on a schedule and it never publishes. Someone has to click the button, and someone has to publish the result.

Where AI comes in. The import itself uses no AI. Everything in the draft comes from YouTube. The one AI step is separate: a few minutes after the thumbnail arrives in the media library, the site's automatic alt text tool uses an AI model to write a short description of the image for screen readers. The editor can read and change it in the media library like any other alt text.

1. TriggerAn editor opens Import from YouTube in the admin and clicks Import latest upload. Nothing starts on its own.
2. InputThe tool reads the newest video anyone can watch on the channel: its title, description, thumbnail and, where set, the recording date.
3. DraftIf the video has no entry yet, it creates a draft video entry with those details, adds the thumbnail to the media library and opens the draft. Drafts are not on the public site.
4. Alt text, separatelyA few minutes later, the site's alt text tool uses an AI model to describe the new thumbnail for screen readers.
5. ReviewA person checks the draft, edits it, adds what the import cannot know and previews it.
6. DecisionPublish it, schedule it, leave it as a draft or delete it. Only this step puts anything on the public site.

If YouTube or the site has a problem at the input or draft step, the editor sees a message on the import page and nothing is published. The next section lists what the tool handles.

The tool gets the facts across. The judgement stays with a person, who asks:

• Is this a video we want on the website at all?
• Does the title work as a page title, and is the page address sensible? The content system makes the address from the title, so I check it before publishing.
• Does the description read well as a web page, rather than as a YouTube description with channel links and timestamps?
• Which destination and series does it belong to? The import leaves those for the editor.
• Do the thumbnail and its alt text make sense?

Then I preview the page and publish it, schedule it for later, leave it as a draft or delete it. The content system keeps revisions of each entry, and the public site only ever shows published entries.

Each of these ends in a plain message on the import page, and nothing is published:

• YouTube cannot be reached. The editor is asked to try again shortly.
• YouTube refuses the request, for example because the access key is wrong or the daily allowance has run out. The message says so and suggests checking both.
• YouTube sends something unreadable. The editor is told the response could not be read.
• There is no public video yet. The editor is told there is nothing to import.
• The video was already imported. The page says so and links to the existing entry, which is left unchanged. A second click while an import is running is refused.
• The thumbnail cannot be fetched. The draft is still created, without an image, and a warning asks the editor to add one.
• The draft cannot be saved. The editor is asked to try again, and a retry works normally.
• The tool is not set up. The button is switched off and marked as not configured.

Nothing retries by itself; the editor decides when to try again. Each attempt is written to a private log on the site with who asked, what was created and any error. That log is for me as the site's developer and is not shown in the editor.

One gap remains. If a video's earlier entry has been moved to the content system's Trash, the tool cannot see it there and will create a fresh draft. Because that draft still needs a person to publish it, the review step catches it.

• The site is live. Its published videos are at aloftandaway.com/vlog.
• The videos come from my public Aloft and Away YouTube channel.
• The admin, the drafts and the log are private.

I have not measured how much time this saves, and I am not going to guess. What I can say is that each new video page starts from the video's own details rather than from nothing.