Intentional News

Agent YT Access

8 min read

Intentional News Agent

Intentional News Agent is an AI-driven news curation assistant designed to help users consume news purposefully and reduce algorithmic distraction.

What the Application Does

The application aggregates content from your preferred news channels, generates concise summaries, and presents a curated daily digest based on your explicit preferences rather than engagement algorithms. Key features include:

  • Custom News Pipelines: Organize trusted video news sources into clear, distraction-free feeds.
  • Automated Summaries: Extract transcripts and produce concise text briefings to save time.
  • Algorithmic Decoupling: Focus on topic coverage rather than clickbait or watch-time optimization.

How We Use Google & YouTube Data

Intentional News Agent requests access to YouTube API services strictly to deliver your personal news pipeline. Specifically, we access:

  • Subscriptions & Public Playlists: To identify the news channels and topics you intentionally follow.
  • Video & Channel Metadata: To fetch video transcripts, titles, and publication dates to construct your daily news digest. We do not sell, rent, share, or use your Google user data for advertising or marketing profiling. Your data is processed exclusively to deliver your requested news pipeline.

Privacy Policy for Intentional News Agent

Effective Date: September 2, 2026

1. Information We Collect

When you connect your Google Account to Intentional News Agent, we request access to YouTube API services. We may collect:

  • Basic account profile information (to identify your workspace).
  • YouTube subscriptions, public playlists, and content preferences you explicitly grant access to.

2. How We Use Your Data

We use your data solely to provide and improve the core functionality of Intentional News Agent, specifically to:

  • Retrieve news videos, playlists, and channel feeds from your authorized subscriptions.
  • Generate AI summaries and digests for your personal news pipeline.

We do not use your Google user data for advertising, marketing profiling, or resale to third parties.

3. Data Sharing and Disclosure

We do not sell, transfer, or share your personal data or Google user data with third parties, except as required to provide core app functionality or to comply with legal obligations.

4. Data Storage and Security

Your data is processed securely. Access credentials (tokens) are stored using encryption and are only used to fetch video metadata on your behalf.

5. Data Retention and Deletion

You can revoke Intentional News Agent’s access to your Google account at any time via Google Account Third-Party Access Settings. Upon revocation or request, stored access tokens and cached user data are permanently deleted from our system.

6. Contact Us

For questions regarding this policy, contact us at: alf@mohinika.com

Terms of Service

This is a personal setup for family use. No data is collected or shared.

API in scope

Alf’s status check (2026-09-01): Verified live against both OAuth tokens.

  • ✅ YouTube Data API v3 — WORKING. the owner’s personal token (/opt/data/hiro-google/google_token.json, client 456928474124) returns 202 subscriptions (TLDR News, DW News, Channel 4, The Economist, Our Changing Climate…) and 41 playlists (Tiny or Capsule Homes, Doughnut Economics or Degrowth, LiveNEWS, Planning in your Present…). Scopes granted: youtube, youtube.readonly, tasks.
  • ⚠️ YouTube Reporting API — NOT needed. Creator-only (uploads/analytics/revenue of channels you OWN). Does not expose viewing habits. Can be left enabled but unused.
  • ⚠️ YouTube Analytics API — NOT needed. Same as above: creator-only. No OAuth scope for it in either token.
  • ⚠️ Token wiring gap: the alf-news profile’s own token (/opt/data/profiles/alf-news/google_token.json, client 145823570865) is a different, empty account — it returns 0 subscriptions / 0 channels. The daily pipeline must use the owner’s token, not the profile token.

YouTube Reporting API

Overview

Schedules reporting jobs containing your YouTube Analytics data and downloads the resulting bulk data reports in the form of CSV files.

  • Service name: youtubereporting.googleapis.com

YouTube Data API v3

Overview

The YouTube Data API v3 is an API that provides access to YouTube data, such as videos, playlists, and channels.

  • Service name: youtube.googleapis.com

YouTube Analytics API

Overview

Retrieves your YouTube Analytics data.

  • Service name: youtubeanalytics.googleapis.com

What these provide for me

can you confirm giving api access to an hermes agent to the following can surface my viewing habits. What else could the agent get to support my goal to build an intentional news consumption pipeline

YouTube Reporting API Overview Schedules reporting jobs containing your YouTube Analytics data and downloads the resulting bulk data reports in the form of CSV files.

Service name: youtubereporting.googleapis.com YouTube Data API v3 Overview The YouTube Data API v3 is an API that provides access to YouTube data, such as videos, playlists, and channels.

Service name: youtube.googleapis.com YouTube Analytics API Overview Retrieves your YouTube Analytics data.

Service name: youtubeanalytics.googleapis.com No, granting these API scopes alone will not directly reveal your actual watch history or precise viewing habits.

Google explicitly deprecated access to the user watch history endpoint in the YouTube Data API v3 several years ago. Neither the Data API, Analytics API, nor Reporting API provides access to the videos you stream or play on YouTube.

However, an agent can piece together strong proxies of your interests through indirect signals in these APIs, and there are better endpoints and data streams to give your Hermes agent if your goal is an intentional news consumption pipeline.

1. What the Agent Can vs. Cannot See

What it CANNOT see (Viewing Habits):

  • Watch History: It cannot see which videos you clicked, played, or watched.
  • Watch Time: It cannot retrieve the time you spent watching individual news videos.
  • Search History: It cannot view what terms you typed into the YouTube search bar.

What it CAN see (Proxies for Interest):

  • Subscriptions (subscriptions.list): The exact channels you subscribe to (e.g., news outlets, independent journalists).

  • Liked / Positively Rated Videos (playlistItems): Your “Liked Videos” playlist. This is often a strong proxy for content you find valuable.

  • Playlists & Saved Content (playlists.list): Any custom news playlists, “Watch Later,” or custom groupings you maintain.

  • Channel Analytics / Reporting (If you are a creator): Note that YouTube Analytics and YouTube Reporting APIs only expose data for content you upload/own (e.g., channel views, subscriber demographics, revenue), not content you watch as a consumer.

2. What Else Should You Give the Hermes Agent?

To build an intentional news consumption pipeline, rely less on tracking passive watching habits and focus more on structured inputs, explicit feedback, and alternate data feeds.

A. For Historical/Current Viewing Data (Workaround)

If you do want your agent to analyze your past viewing patterns to purge or curate recommendations:

  • Google Takeout Export: You can periodically download your official YouTube Watch History (via history/watch-history.json from Google Takeout) and pass it directly to Hermes. The agent can scan the titles, categories, and channel frequency to build a profile of where your attention goes.

  • Browser Extension / Local Sync: A local browser extension can scrape your local YouTube watch history log and sync it to your agent locally.

  • To DO First. Could do Takeout later (but thats historic)

B. Essential APIs & Tools for an Intentional Pipeline

To shift your consumption from algorithmic doomscrolling to curated, intentional digest, give your Hermes agent access to:

  1. YouTube Data API v3 (subscriptions & playlistItems):

    • Use Case: Have the agent read your subscribed news channels and daily “Liked Videos” or custom “News Queue” playlist to identify topics you actively curate.

  2. RSS / Atom Feeds (via YouTube Channel IDs):
    • Use Case: Every YouTube channel has a native RSS feed ([https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=CHANNEL_ID](https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=CHANNEL_ID)). Giving your agent RSS access allows it to pull brand-new uploads from trusted news channels instantly without making expensive API calls.
  • Already being implemented via FreshRSS. The current list there is stale so the API can help refresh this
  1. YouTube Transcript / Caption Access (e.g., youtube-transcript-api):
    • Use Case: When new videos drop from your trusted sources, the agent can fetch the video transcripts, summarize key news points into a daily text digest, and skip clickbait or fluff segments.
  • Indeed. think there is already a tool hermes uses for this, or is it the official? Which one is better? Would be good to get rid of clickbait title and get a good brief summary as part of daily news digest (whitout burning too much tokens)
  1. News API or Web Search Capabilities:
    • Use Case: To combat perspective bias, have Hermes take news topics found in YouTube videos and cross-reference them with broader web search or text-based news sources (e.g., Associated Press, Reuters).
  • Yes - ultimate for a given topic / news item a video and other sources can be collated together. Alf now has youtube access in its own profile (probably mine too). Can it create a public playlist with “latest news on getting AI native”, and curate videos based on daily feeds? and below read it later
  1. Read-it-Later / Bookmark Services (e.g., Pocket, Raindrop.io, Instapaper):
    • Use Case: Connect Hermes to your bookmarking service so you can push interesting news videos or articles into a single queue. Hermes can then classify, filter, and schedule when you read/watch them during dedicated focus blocks.
  • Ok - need to evaluate this as an alternative / addition to news digest / YT playlist

Graph View