Workflow · Automation
New uploads → summarized alerts
“Did they post this week?” should not require opening YouTube. The check is free; credits are spent only on videos that are actually new.
How it works
- A scheduled job calls the free latest-uploads endpoint for each channel.
- It compares publish timestamps against the last run's cursor.
- New videos get their transcripts fetched — the only credited step.
- Summaries land wherever you work: Slack, email, Notion, or a daily note.
The cost structure is the feature
Most monitoring setups are expensive because the poll itself costs money. Here the poll is free RSS — get_latest_videos never charges — so a check every hour across ten channels costs exactly zero until something new appears. A quiet week is a free week.
# cron-friendly: free check, then fetch only what's new
curl "https://bulktranscripts.co/api/v1/channel/latest?channel=@target" \
| jq -r '.results[] | select(.published > "'$LAST_RUN'") | .id' \
| while read id; do curl "https://bulktranscripts.co/api/v1/transcript?video=$id&segments=0"; doneEvery morning, check @channel1 and @channel2 for uploads newer than 24 hours.
If there are any, fetch the transcripts and give me a 3-bullet summary per
video with a link. If nothing is new, reply with just: 'quiet day'.Building this in n8n or Make instead? The exact node-by-node setup is in the n8n guide and Make guide.
What you’ll need
An MCP-capable assistant (Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor) connected to https://bulktranscripts.co/mcp — one sign-in includes 30 free credits — or a license key for the REST API. Transcripts already in your library are re-read free, so iterating on the same videos costs nothing after the first pass.
Common questions
How many channels can I monitor?
As many as you like — the check is free per channel. Rate limits are per-minute, so space a very large list across the hour.
Does the digest cost credits on quiet days?
No. Credits are only spent when a new video's transcript is actually fetched.