Upload to YouTube from Codex
Codex can upload Shorts and videos on YouTube through ClipSpeed. Add the ClipSpeed server with one command, sign in, and then ask Codex to upload Shorts and videos, pick the time, and apply YouTube's settings, without leaving the terminal and IDE.
Keep a human in the loop: Codex shows the plan and asks before anything is public. Posting today: YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, X (Twitter) and LinkedIn.
Also try
How to upload YouTube from Codex
One command writes the server into Codex's config. Start codex, sign in to ClipSpeed when it asks, and the tools are available. Connect YouTube in ClipSpeed, then describe the post. Setup takes about a minute.
# One-time setup (OAuth, no API key)
codex mcp add clipspeed --url https://api.clipspeed.ai/mcp
# Then ask Codex:
> Upload clip 3 as a Short now, title it from the hook, keep it public
Codex: Preview — nothing booked yet. YouTube — privacy_status: public. Book it?Codex stores MCP servers in ~/.codex/config.toml under [mcp_servers.clipspeed]. You can also paste the block by hand.
- Run codex mcp add clipspeed --url https://api.clipspeed.ai/mcp in your terminal.
- Start codex. On first use of a ClipSpeed tool it opens the OAuth sign-in; approve it.
- Ask it to list your channels to confirm.
- Connect YouTube in the ClipSpeed app, or ask Codex for a connect link: it is private, valid for ten minutes, and YouTube signs you in itself.
Developer reference: the Codex MCP page.
What can Codex do on YouTube?
On YouTube, Codex can upload Shorts and full videos with a title, description, hashtags and a privacy setting. Every booking runs through the same rules as the ClipSpeed app.
Video posts
YouTube takes video through ClipSpeed. Video: MP4, MOV or WebM up to 1 GB by public link, or a finished ClipSpeed clip by clip_id.
5,000 characters, checked at booking
YouTube's own arithmetic. Too long is refused with the real count, never trimmed at send time. Titles are required and cap at 100.
Exact time or refused
Name the minute and Codex books it, or you are told why not and offered the next open slot. A booked YouTube post is never moved behind your back.
Preview before anything posts
preview: true runs the whole booking and writes nothing. Codex shows the plan, with each slot and the day's remaining cap, and books only on your yes.
Clips cut in the same session
Submit a video or stream link, get captioned 9:16 clips with a viral score, and post the best as native video on YouTube. No download, no re-upload.
Pacing and numbers
Video on YouTube is at least 4 hours apart, up to 4 a day under your plan. After a post goes out, Codex can read back views and engagement where YouTube provides them.
How does Codex post to YouTube through ClipSpeed?
You describe what you want in plain language and Codex makes the ClipSpeed calls. A typical conversation has three beats.
Find your YouTube channel
Ask Codex whether YouTube is connected. It calls list_channels and reads platform_settings, so it also knows what YouTube accepts and the limits before you write a word.
Compose within the rules
Describe the post. Codex drafts within YouTube's limits; mention a clip or a file and it attaches it.
Schedule or publish
Name a time, or say now. The slot is booked exactly or refused with the next open one, and the reply carries the id you can cancel or edit by.
YouTube settings reference
These are the schedule_post fields that apply to YouTube. Mention any of them in plain language and Codex sets them; the server checks them at booking.
| Field | Type | Required | What it does on YouTube |
|---|---|---|---|
platforms | string[] | Yes | Include "youtube". Up to ten platforms per call; each books its own slot. |
title | string | Yes | The video title. YouTube requires one; up to 100 characters. |
text | string | No | The description, up to 5,000 characters. Links stay clickable. |
hashtags | string[] | No | Appended to the description; the first three show above the title on YouTube. They count toward the 5,000. |
privacy_status | public | unlisted | private | No | Defaults to public. Ask for unlisted when you want to review the upload on YouTube before anyone sees it. |
clip_id or media_url | string | One of the two | A finished ClipSpeed clip from check_clips, or a public https link to an MP4, MOV or WebM up to 1 GB. |
scheduled_at | ISO 8601 | No | Booked exactly or refused with the next open slot. Omit it to upload as soon as a slot is free. |
preview | boolean | No | true books nothing and returns the exact slot each upload would get. |
Common YouTube configurations
Ask Codex for any of these and it applies the matching settings.
Short, public, as soon as possible
Unlisted for review first
Scheduled premiere-style drop
Dry run of a week of Shorts
Example prompts for YouTube in Codex
Type these into the terminal and IDE, or pass one to nightly.sh in a script. Codex calls ClipSpeed and confirms before publishing.
Upload YouTube with a scheduled time
Upload clip 3 as a Short now, title it from the hook, keep it public. Keep the text under 5,000 characters. Preview first.
Cut the clips, then post the best
Clip this link, keep the top three by viral score, and schedule them to YouTube at 11am, 3pm and 7pm tomorrow with titles written from each hook. Show me the plan before booking.
From a script with Codex
codex exec "Summarise the changes since the last git tag as one YouTube post under 5,000 characters with a title. Schedule it via ClipSpeed for today at 10am; preview first and book if nothing is refused."
YouTube limits and gotchas to know
YouTube enforces a few rules that Codex and ClipSpeed respect automatically, but knowing them helps you phrase requests.
- A title is required and capped at 100 characters. Ask the agent to write the title from the clip's hook line; the booking is refused, not trimmed, if it runs long.
- YouTube takes video only. A text-only or image request to YouTube is refused at booking with the message "YouTube takes video posts, not text".
- privacy_status defaults to public. Say "unlisted" or "private" in the prompt when you want to check the upload on YouTube first.
- Uploads are spaced four hours apart on the same channel and capped at your plan's daily number. A second upload inside that window is refused with the next open slot, never silently moved.
- Shorts are detected by YouTube from a vertical 9:16 frame under three minutes. ClipSpeed clips already come out 9:16; a 16:9 source uploads as a standard video.
| Rule | YouTube |
|---|---|
| Accepts | Video |
| Text limit | 5,000 characters |
| Title | 100 characters, required |
| Links in the caption | Kept |
| Pacing | Video on YouTube is at least 4 hours apart, up to 4 a day under your plan. |
| Formats | Video: MP4, MOV or WebM up to 1 GB by public link, or a finished ClipSpeed clip by clip_id. Aspect: 9:16 vertical for Shorts, 16:9 for standard uploads |
| Status | Posting today |
What Postiz-style schedulers cannot do
Cut the clips first
Codex does not need finished video to start. Hand it a YouTube link, a podcast, a stream VOD or a local export. ClipSpeed finds the moments, cuts them to 9:16 with word-by-word captions, scores each one 0 to 100 for shareability, and returns them in the same conversation. Codex picks by score, writes the caption from the transcript, and books the clips on YouTube. Three tool calls, one approval, no download and no re-upload.
- Clips arrive with a title written from the hook, a transcript and a viral score, so the agent can choose and caption without watching the footage.
- Live streams can be clipped while they are still on air; the agent books the highlights for the next morning before the stream ends.
- Every clip is already hosted, so
schedule_posttakes its id directly. Nothing moves through your laptop.
submit_to_clipspeedPaste the link. ClipSpeed starts the job and returns a project id.check_clipsPoll with the project id. Back come the finished 9:16 clips with titles, transcripts, viral scores and preview links.schedule_postPass the clip id, the platforms, a caption and a time. Codex shows the plan with preview: true, you say yes, it books.generate_image or generate_videoDescribe the shot. ClipSpeed runs it on the model that fits (Seedance, Kling, Veo, Nano Banana Pro, GPT Image and others) and quotes the credits first.wait_for_generationReturns the hosted result link and a preview the agent can show you.schedule_post with media_urlThe result link goes straight into the booking on YouTube. The caption, the time and the file are approved together.The other half nobody else has
Generate the video, then post it
A product shot for Instagram, a 16:9 announcement graphic for X, a six-second opener before a clip: Codex can make a short video with ClipSpeed's image and video models and book the result in the same reply. There is no separate design tool, no export, no upload page. The generated file is hosted, so media_url is the only thing the booking needs.
- The price in credits is quoted before anything renders, within the per-generation and daily caps you set in Settings.
- Results are previewed in the conversation, so you approve the picture and the post at once.
- video posts as MP4, MOV or WebM up to 1 GB.
What is Codex?
Codex is OpenAI's coding agent. It runs in the terminal (codex), inside IDEs, and in the cloud, reads your codebase, runs commands and calls MCP tools. With ClipSpeed added as an MCP server, Codex can clip a video, generate images and video, and schedule posts, interactively or from a script with codex exec.
How ClipSpeed works with Codex
- codex mcp add writes the server into config.toml; Codex discovers the tools at start
- It reads
platform_settingsbefore writing so limits are met schedule_postis exact or refused with the next open slot; nothing moved quietlypreview: truereturns the plan with nothing bookedcodex exectakes one prompt and exits, for cron and CI
Codex vs ChatGPT: Codex (terminal, ide, cloud), ChatGPT (chatgpt.com). This page is about Codex; the Codex guide compares them.
# Written by: codex mcp add clipspeed --url https://api.clipspeed.ai/mcp
[mcp_servers.clipspeed]
url = "https://api.clipspeed.ai/mcp"
# For a runner with no browser, authenticate with an API key instead:
# bearer_token_env_var = "CLIPSPEED_API_KEY"
# Verify
$ codex "List my connected ClipSpeed channels"# What the agent reads at connect time (tool descriptions, abridged)
list_channels Connected platforms, what each accepts, limits, your time zone
connect_channel A private 10-minute link to connect one platform
platform_settings Limits, title rules, link handling, pacing per platform
schedule_post clip_id | text | media_url → platforms[], scheduled_at, preview
list_scheduled_posts Scheduled, sending, posted, failed — with post links
update_scheduled_post Edit copy while still scheduled (the time never moves)
cancel_scheduled_post Cancel; undoable 72 h in the app
post_analytics Views, likes, comments, shares where the platform gives them
submit_to_clipspeed Start clipping a video or stream link → projectId
check_clips Finished 9:16 clips with titles, transcripts, viral scores
generate_image / generate_video / wait_for_generation
# YouTube: video · text 5,000 · title 100 requiredUpload to YouTube and other platforms from Codex
One request can book the same content to YouTube and other channels, each keeping its own settings and its own slot. Every platform below has its own Codex guide.
Also works with
YouTube and Codex: frequently asked questions
How do I upload to YouTube from Codex?
Run codex mcp add clipspeed --url https://api.clipspeed.ai/mcp in your terminal. Start codex. On first use of a ClipSpeed tool it opens the OAuth sign-in; approve it. Connect YouTube in ClipSpeed (or ask Codex for a connect link; it is private and valid for ten minutes), then describe the post in plain language. Codex reads the YouTube rules, drafts within them, shows the plan and books on your yes.
What can Codex post to YouTube through ClipSpeed?
Upload Shorts and full videos with a title, description, hashtags and a privacy setting. YouTube takes video posts; a text-only request is refused with a message naming what it accepts. Text is limited to 5,000 characters. A title is required and is capped at 100 characters.
Which YouTube settings can Codex control?
The fields in the settings reference above: title, text, hashtags, privacy_status, clip_id or media_url, scheduled_at, preview. Mention any of them in plain language ("unlisted", "tomorrow at 9", "preview first") and Codex sets the matching field before it books.
Do I need a YouTube API key or developer account?
No. You connect YouTube to ClipSpeed once through YouTube's own sign-in, and Codex talks to ClipSpeed over OAuth. No YouTube developer key, bearer token or password is pasted anywhere.
How many YouTube posts a day can Codex schedule?
Video on YouTube is at least 4 hours apart, up to 4 a day under your plan. When a time is taken, the booking is refused with the next open slot rather than moved. Ask for preview to see a day's plan and the remaining cap before anything is booked.
Can Codex post to YouTube from a script or a cron job?
Yes. Codex's headless mode (nightly.sh) runs one prompt and exits, and the ClipSpeed server registered on that machine does the booking. On a runner with no browser, authenticate with a ClipSpeed API key header. Keep preview on so the run reports a plan before it books.
Is posting to YouTube from Codex different from ChatGPT?
The booking is identical: the same rules, the same calendar, the same refusals. What differs is where you work. Codex: terminal, vs code and other ides, codex cloud. ChatGPT: chatgpt.com, conversation first; confirms each write.