Hermoso is a marketing MCP server: 718+ tools over one OAuth’d endpoint that let an agent research the ads already running in a market, generate finished image and video ads, publish them, and build the paid campaigns behind them. Grok Bot reaches all of it through one connection. This page is about one slice of that — what Grok Bot can actually do on YouTube, and what YouTube will not let it do.
Connect Hermoso to Grok Bot
- Install and sign in.
Your browser opens once. Nothing to create and nothing to paste: the credential is stored owner-only innpm install -g hermoso && hermoso auth login~/.hermoso/config.json. On a machine with no browser,hermoso auth login --token hmk_…takes a key from Settings → Agents & API keys instead. - Add the server. One command, and no key in any file, because
hermoso mcpreads the sign-in above:
Or write it intogrok mcp add hermoso -- npx -y hermoso mcp~/.grok/config.tomlyourself:[mcp_servers.hermoso] command = "npx" args = ["-y", "hermoso", "mcp"] - Or use the hosted endpoint, which installs nothing:
x.ai documents what happens next: servers that require OAuth trigger a browser flow on first use, and the tokens are stored undergrok mcp add --transport http hermoso https://app.hermoso.ai/mcp~/.grok/mcp_credentials.json. You never hold a key either way. - Ask a Bot for something. “Pull my three closest competitors’ longest-running ads and remix the best hook into a 9:16 video,” or “post this render to the channel.” The agent picks the tools; you approve the spend.
Hermoso is not affiliated with or endorsed by xAI and does not claim to be. The command shapes, the config.toml keys and the OAuth behaviour above are quoted from x.ai’s own MCP server reference, read on 2026-08-27. Two things worth knowing before you pick a form: --scope project writes .grok/config.toml next to a repo instead of your home directory, which is the right choice when one project should always run against one brand, and /mcps in the TUI opens the MCP tab of the extensions modal if you would rather see the server listed than trust that it registered.
Then connect YouTube itself, once, under Settings → Connectors in Hermoso. That is an OAuth consent screen, so it is the one step that needs a browser — everything after it is a tool call.
The YouTube tools Grok Bot gets
post_to_youtube— uploads a finished video with a title, a description of up to 5,000 characters, up to 30 tags, and a privacy setting.schedule_post— queues the upload — with the description and tags carried through, which is not something to take for granted.set_youtube_thumbnail— puts a designed thumbnail on the upload. It is the single biggest lever on click-through, and YouTube otherwise picks a frame more or less at random.make_thumbnail— generates that thumbnail in the first place.update_youtube_video / list_youtube_videos— edit an upload’s metadata, or list your own uploads — including unlisted and private ones a public search cannot see.youtube_video_insights / youtube_channel— views, watch time, average view percentage and subscribers gained.list_youtube_comments / reply_to_youtube_comment— read and answer comments as the channel.
The unit really is a video: post_to_youtube takes a videoUrl and there is no image path at all. Two smaller gates worth knowing before an automated upload: a Google project that has not been verified has videos.insert locked to private regardless of what you ask for, and custom thumbnails need a phone-verified channel.
YouTube limits worth knowing before you automate anything
| Text | A YouTube title is capped at 100 characters — and a scheduled item’s text becomes the title. The description is a separate field of up to 5,000 characters, carrying up to 30 tags. It is enforced when the post is created or queued — refused while you are still there to fix it, rather than silently cut on the way out. |
|---|---|
| Visibility | Public, unlisted or private. There is no Studio draft — “YouTube’s API can upload as public, unlisted or private, but it cannot create a Studio draft”, so unlisted is the closest thing to a review state, and it is what an immediate post defaults to so an ad-ready upload is not accidentally public. |
| Carousel | Refused, by name. “YouTube’s unit is a video, not a set of stills. Turn the slides into a video (Hermoso can stitch them) and post that instead, or drop YouTube from this post.” That is not a limitation Hermoso invented to avoid work — it is what YouTube is — and the refusal comes at enqueue, with the way forward attached, rather than as a silently posted first slide. |
| Which account | None — YouTube publishes to the connected channel. |
Try it in Grok Bot
Ask for it in ordinary language — these are sentences, not a DSL:
“For every film that finishes rendering, write a title under 100 characters and a full description with links, generate a thumbnail, upload it unlisted, and send me the link.”
That walks make_thumbnail → post_to_youtube → set_youtube_thumbnail → youtube_video_insights. Approval is Grok Bot’s setting rather than ours, and the shared machine is the reason to think about it: isolation is per user, not per Bot, so anything one Bot connects, every Bot on that machine can reach. What Hermoso enforces underneath, whichever way you set it, is the spend fence. Every campaign object is created paused, and the only switches that arm real money refuse to run without an explicit confirmation flag.
Grok Bot on YouTube: the part that bites
Say description and tags explicitly in the job. If you only give a caption it becomes the 100-character title and the 5,000-character description stays empty, which is where the links, the CTA and everything YouTube search reads were supposed to go. It is unrecoverable at the point anyone notices, and an agent that uploads on its own will make the same omission every time until you fix the instruction.
On a team plan the server URL may need to go on your MCP allowlist before a Bot can reach it, which is an admin action rather than a failure. And for a long unattended run the hermoso CLI is the cheaper path: the agent shells out per command instead of carrying a 718-tool manifest through every turn of a job that might run for days.
Research YouTube before you post
search_youtube searches the public YouTube index — which is a different question from “what have I uploaded”, and list_youtube_videos is the tool for that one. For a competitor’s film, analyze_video returns the voiceover, the on-screen text and the beat list with timestamps, which is what you actually want before rebuilding a hook.
The paid half
Hermoso’s Google Ads tools build search, display and Performance Max campaigns — the whole tree in one atomic operation, read back from Google before your agent narrates it — plus Keyword Planner volumes, conversion actions, and sitelinks and callouts created and attached. There is no YouTube video-campaign builder, and it would be wrong to imply one; a YouTube video asset can be uploaded and attached, but the campaign types Hermoso creates are search, display and Performance Max.
What Grok Bot cannot do on its own
An agent with a budget is only useful if the blast radius is bounded, so the fence is in the server rather than in a prompt. Every ad campaign, ad set, ad group and ad is created paused, and the status switches that arm real money refuse to run without an explicit confirmation flag. Every render is quoted first — hermoso_capabilities publishes each model’s exact credit cost before anything spends — and credits are reserved before the first provider call and settled at the exact cost afterwards, so a failed dispatch refunds rather than leaving you billed for nothing. Deletes are confirm-gated too, and every campaign tree is read back from the ad platform before your agent tells you what it built.
One step is deliberately not headless: linking an account is an OAuth consent screen, so you connect the channel once in a browser. Everything after that is a tool call.
The rest of the matrix
From Grok Bot, post to: Facebook · Instagram · Threads · TikTok · X · LinkedIn · Pinterest — or see everything Grok Bot can publish to.
Post to YouTube from: Claude · ChatGPT · Claude Code · Cursor · Codex · Cline · OpenClaw · Hermes
Frequently asked questions
Can Grok Bot post to YouTube?
Yes, through Hermoso's MCP server. Run npm install -g hermoso && hermoso auth login, then grok mcp add hermoso -- npx -y hermoso mcp. The browser sign-in stores the credential, so no key goes in config.toml. Grok Bot then has 718+ tools, including the ones that publish to YouTube — and the ones that research the ads already running in your market and render the creative in the first place.
How do I connect YouTube to Grok Bot?
Two steps, once each. Run npm install -g hermoso && hermoso auth login, then grok mcp add hermoso -- npx -y hermoso mcp. The browser sign-in stores the credential, so no key goes in config.toml. Then connect YouTube inside Hermoso under Settings → Connectors, which is an OAuth consent screen in a browser. After that Grok Bot publishes to YouTube as an ordinary tool call.
Does Grok Bot need my YouTube password?
No. You connect YouTube to Hermoso once through an OAuth consent screen in a browser, and Grok Bot then reaches it as a tool call. Linking an account is the one step that is not headless; nothing after it needs a password, and no credential is ever handed to the model.
Can Grok Bot research YouTube before it posts?
Yes. search_youtube searches the public YouTube index, list_youtube_videos reads your own uploads including unlisted ones, and analyze_video returns a competitor film’s voiceover, on-screen text and beat list with timestamps.
Start free — 25 credits at signup and 250+ more to earn, and every feature on every plan.
Start free → See pricing