Yt content planner
YouTube and YouTube Shorts marketing skills for Claude Code and Codex: high-CTR titles, SEO descriptions, retention hooks, thumbnails, and a content plan. Publish via Publora. MIT.
npx -y skills add sergebulaev/youtube-skills --skill yt-content-plannerAssembled from the repository path, not quoted from the project. Check it against their README if it does not work.
One thing to look at
- 5 stars5 stars. Stars are a popularity signal and not a quality one, but at this level it is likely that nobody has read this closely except its author, and you would be relying on your own review.
What its author says it does
Copied from the file, not written here
Build a weekly YouTube upload plan: long-form vs YouTube Shorts mix, posting cadence, per-slot title and thumbnail pairing, hook angle, community-tab posts between uploads, and a goal balance across CTR, retention, and subscribes. Maps Shorts as top-of-funnel that points at long-form, and long-form as the loyalty and watch-time engine. Use to plan a week or a content calendar instead of shipping ad hoc. Not for writing a single title, description, or hook (use the dedicated yt skills).
SKILL.md
4.9 KB, as published. Nobody here has run it
YouTube Content Planner
Turns a channel theme, an audience, and content pillars into a structured week: what to upload, when, in which format, and how the title and thumbnail pair on each slot. It plans; the dedicated skills write each piece.
When to use
- User says "plan my week of YouTube content" or "build me a content calendar"
- User wants a long-form vs Shorts mix and a cadence they can hold
- User wants each slot pre-paired (format, title angle, thumbnail angle, hook)
- User wants the community-tab posts scheduled between uploads
What it produces
- A weekly grid: each slot has a format (long-form or Short), a working title angle, a thumbnail angle, the hook formula, the pillar, and a posting window.
- A long-form vs Shorts ratio sized to the channel's stage and capacity.
- Community posts placed on the non-upload days to keep the channel warm.
- A goal balance check: across the week, are you spread across CTR-first, retention-first, and subscribe-first pieces, not all one note.
Steps
- Gather inputs. The channel theme/niche, the audience, 3 to 5 content
pillars, the target audience timezone, how many videos per week the user can
realistically make, and the current stage (new channel vs established). If a
channel URL is given, parse it with
lib/url_parser.pyand ask the user to paste their recent titles and rough view counts. - Set the mix. Size the long-form vs Shorts ratio to capacity and stage. A common growing-channel rhythm is 1 long-form per week plus 3 to 5 Shorts, but consistency over 12 weeks beats volume. Confirm a cadence the user can hold.
- Assign pillars to slots so the week is varied, not five takes on one topic.
- Pair each slot. For every upload, set:
- format (long-form or Short)
- working title angle (which Y1-Y6 formula)
- thumbnail angle (what it carries that the title does not)
- opening hook formula (Y7-Y10), matched via the pairing table
- primary goal (CTR / retention / subscribes)
- posting window in the audience timezone
- Place community posts on the non-upload days (a poll, a tease, a question).
- Run the goal balance check. If every slot is CTR-bait or every slot is a deep tutorial, rebalance. Shorts skew top-of-funnel reach; long-form skews watch-time and loyalty. Make sure both jobs are covered.
- Hand each slot to the right skill. The planner does not write the final
title, description, hook, or thumbnail; it routes each slot to
yt-title-optimizer,yt-description-writer,yt-hook-scripter, andyt-thumbnail-brief. - Optional approval + schedule. If the user has videos ready, each one
publishes through its own skill via
lib.publish(...); the planner only sets the calendar.
Hard rules
Global voice rules: see root SKILL.md Voice rules. Additional skill-specific
rules:
- Cadence must be one the user can hold for at least 12 weeks. Sustainable beats ambitious.
- Every upload slot is pre-paired: format, title angle, thumbnail angle, hook, goal, and time. No naked "post a video" slots.
- Shorts and long-form must have a through-line (Shorts point at the library), not two disconnected audiences.
- Spread the week across CTR, retention, and subscribe goals. Not all one note.
- Measure long-form watch-time and returning viewers separately from Shorts views. Do not let Shorts reach inflate the read on growth.
Anti-patterns (skill will refuse)
- An over-ambitious cadence the user cannot sustain (daily long-form for a solo creator).
- Five slots that are all the same pillar and the same goal.
- Shorts with no connection to the long-form library.
- "Post more" as a plan, with no per-slot pairing.
- Em dashes anywhere in the plan.
Resources
../../references/algorithm-heuristics.md- long-form vs Shorts strategy, timing, signals../../references/hook-formulas.md- title and hook formulas to assign per slotreferences/pillars-framework.md- turning a niche into pillars and a balanced mixreferences/example-week.md- a fully worked weekly grid
Related skills
yt-title-optimizer- write the title for each planned slotyt-thumbnail-brief- brief the thumbnail for each planned slotyt-hook-scripter- script the opening for each planned slotyt-description-writer- write the description for each planned slotyt-community-post-writer- the between-uploads community posts