wlzh-youtube-tracker

A script-backed Skill to maintain a list of tracked YouTube channels and periodically check for new uploads.

v3.1.0 - Self-contained Telegram Sending (2026-06-06)

Critical reliability fix — script now sends Telegram directly, no LLM relay needed.

Changes

• notify sends Telegram directly: Script calls Telegram Bot API itself, no LLM relay
• Atomic seen marking: Only marks video as seen AFTER successful Telegram send
• Auto-retry on failure: Failed sends stay "unseen", next cron cycle retries automatically
• Reads bot token from ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json: No extra config needed
• Fallback mode: If bot token unavailable, falls back to stdout output for LLM relay

Bug fix

• v3.0.0 had a critical bug: notify marked videos as seen immediately upon detection,

but Telegram sending was done by LLM. If LLM failed (rate limit/timeout), videos were lost forever — marked as seen but never sent. v3.1.0 fixes this completely.

v3.0.0 - Parallel Fetching + Notify Mode (2026-06-06)

Major performance optimization — parallel fetching, ~10x faster.

Changes

• Parallel HTTP fetching: All channels now fetch concurrently (15 parallel curl processes)
• ~10x faster: 55 channels check in ~4-5 seconds (was ~45 seconds with serial curl)
• New notify command: Outputs Telegram-ready formatted messages (📺🎬🔗 format)

- Eliminates timeout failures (the #2 failure cause) - No more ~24k tokens consumed per check - Success rate expected: ~99% (was ~64%)

Why this matters

• Previous cron used isolated agentTurn: LLM → exec script → LLM interpret → send
• Each run consumed 24-95k tokens and took 45-180s, frequently hitting API rate limits
• New approach: systemEvent → exec script (4s) → send if needed → done

v2.1.0 - Proxy Support (2026-06-05)

Fix: Added automatic proxy support for YouTube RSS feeds.

• YouTube is inaccessible from China without proxy; all HTTP requests now route through proxy
• Auto-detects proxy from HTTPSPROXY / HTTPPROXY env vars, falls back to http://127.0.0.1:10808
• Replaced fetch() API calls with curl via execSync for consistent proxy routing

v2.0.0 - RSS Mode (2026-03-17)

Breaking change: Now uses YouTube RSS feeds by default - no API key needed, no quota limits!

What it does

• Add / remove / list tracked channels (input can be URL / @handle / channelId)
• On add, it will baseline (mark the channel's current latest videos as seen)
• On check, prints only new videos since last run with channel name, title, video URL
• On notify, prints Telegram-formatted output (📺🎬🔗) for direct cron use

Data files

All state is stored inside this Skill folder:

• state/config.json (tracked channels, no API key needed for RSS mode)
• state/seen.json (dedupe: already announced video ids, keeps up to 2000)

Commands

Run from this skill directory:

# RSS mode (recommended, no API key needed)
node scripts/youtube-tracker-rss.js add "https://www.youtube.com/@veritasium"
node scripts/youtube-tracker-rss.js add "@veritasium"
node scripts/youtube-tracker-rss.js add "UCddiUEpeqJcYeBxX1IVBKvQ"
node scripts/youtube-tracker-rss.js list
node scripts/youtube-tracker-rss.js remove "UCddiUEpeqJcYeBxX1IVBKvQ"
node scripts/youtube-tracker-rss.js check    # original output format
node scripts/youtube-tracker-rss.js notify   # Auto-sends to Telegram, marks seen on success

# API mode (legacy, requires API key)
node scripts/youtube-tracker.js set-key "YOUR_YT_API_KEY"
node scripts/youtube-tracker.js validate-key
node scripts/youtube-tracker.js add "@veritasium"
node scripts/youtube-tracker.js check

Cron usage

Recommended (v3.0+): systemEvent mode

Uses notify command + systemEvent cron target — no LLM needed per check.

Cron payload (isolated agentTurn):
  Execute `cd /Users/m./Documents/QNSZ/project/skills/wlzh-youtube-tracker && node scripts/youtube-tracker-rss.js notify`
  Script auto-sends new videos to Telegram topic 1016 via Bot API.
  Only marks seen on successful send — failed videos retry next cycle.
  stdout 有内容 → 逐条发到 Telegram
  stdout 为空 → HEARTBEAT_OK

Legacy: agentTurn mode

Previous approach using isolated LLM session. Higher overhead, subject to API rate limits.

Legacy (agentTurn with LLM relay — not recommended):
  Run `cd .../wlzh-youtube-tracker && node scripts/youtube-tracker-rss.js check`
  Interpret stdout, send if "发现" found

Output formats

check command (original)

频道：最佳拍档
标题：Anthropic呼吁按下AI暂停键？
链接：https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxx

notify command (Telegram-ready)

📺 最佳拍档
🎬 Anthropic呼吁按下AI暂停键？
🔗 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxx

Migration from v1.x / v2.x

• Existing state/config.json and state/seen.json are fully compatible
• check command output unchanged (backwards compatible)
• New notify command is optional, designed for cron use