Hermoso is a marketing MCP server: 876+ 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. Paperclip reaches all of it through one connection. This page covers one slice of that: what Paperclip can actually do on YouTube, and what YouTube will not let it do.
Connect Hermoso to Paperclip
- Copy the connector URL.
https://app.hermoso.ai/mcp - Paperclip → Connectors → Connect your own MCP server. Paste the URL. Paperclip asks the server what it needs; Hermoso advertises OAuth, so Paperclip registers a client by itself and opens a browser sign-in.
- Approve on the Hermoso page. Sign in with your Hermoso account and allow access. No key is pasted.
- Set the action permissions. Paperclip lists Hermoso’s tools as read, write or destructive, and each can be Allowed, Ask first or Off. Allow the reads, and keep anything that publishes, schedules or spends on Ask first.
- Ask an agent in Paperclip 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.
Paperclip labels any server outside its reviewed catalog an Unverified server, which in Paperclip’s words is a statement about review, not about whether the connection works. Every Hermoso tool publishes read-only and destructive annotations, so the read, write and destructive split comes from the server rather than from Paperclip guessing at tool names. The steps are quoted from Paperclip’s custom MCP server guide, read on 2026-10-03, and documented rather than run here. Hermoso is not affiliated with or endorsed by Paperclip.
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 Paperclip 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, and carries the description and tags through with it.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, so an overlong post is refused while you are still there to fix it instead of being 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.” Hermoso did not invent that limit to avoid work; it is simply what YouTube is. The refusal comes at enqueue, with the way forward attached, instead of a silently posted first slide. |
| Which account | None. YouTube publishes to the connected channel. |
Try it in Paperclip
Ask for it in ordinary language. These are plain sentences, not a DSL:
“Video agent: upload this week’s explainer unlisted with a title under 100 characters, a full description and a generated thumbnail, then report the link.”
That walks make_thumbnail → post_to_youtube → set_youtube_thumbnail → youtube_video_insights. Paperclip puts its own gate in front of every Hermoso call: each action is Allowed, Ask first or Off. Hermoso’s gates sit underneath: campaigns are born paused, and spend switches and deletes need an explicit confirmation.
Paperclip on YouTube: the part that bites
Unlisted is YouTube’s only review state through the API, so it suits an agent org: the agent uploads, a person watches, and update_youtube_video makes it public. Give the description its own instruction, because otherwise the text becomes the 100-character title.
There is a second way to give a Paperclip agent Hermoso, and Paperclip warns that it is different: attaching a server to the agent’s runtime, such as installing Hermoso’s plugin into the Claude Code an agent runs on. That works, but Paperclip’s action permissions and review queue do not sit in front of it. Use the connector when you want Paperclip deciding what an agent may publish.
Research YouTube before you post
search_youtube searches the public YouTube index. That 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 Paperclip 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). 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 Paperclip, post to: Facebook · Instagram · Threads · TikTok · X · LinkedIn · Pinterest · Bluesky · Telegram. Or see everything Paperclip can publish to.
Post to YouTube from: Claude · ChatGPT · Claude Code · Cursor · Codex · Cline · OpenClaw · Grok Bot · Hermes · Gemini CLI · Perplexity · Le Chat · Claude Cowork · Perplexity Computer
Frequently asked questions
Can Paperclip post to YouTube?
Yes, through Hermoso's MCP server. In Paperclip, open Connectors, choose Connect your own MCP server, paste https://app.hermoso.ai/mcp and approve the sign-in with your Hermoso account. There is no key to paste. Paperclip then has 876+ tools, including the ones that publish to YouTube, plus 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 Paperclip?
Two steps, once each. In Paperclip, open Connectors, choose Connect your own MCP server, paste https://app.hermoso.ai/mcp and approve the sign-in with your Hermoso account. There is no key to paste. Then connect YouTube inside Hermoso under Settings → Connectors, which is an OAuth consent screen in a browser. After that Paperclip publishes to YouTube as an ordinary tool call.
Can Paperclip post privately or as a draft to YouTube?
Yes: public, unlisted or private. There is no Studio draft in YouTube’s API, so unlisted is the review state, and an immediate post defaults to it. Hermoso refuses a visibility YouTube cannot honour at the moment you ask for it, rather than quietly publishing something weaker.
What does it cost to post to YouTube from Paperclip?
Publishing to YouTube costs no credits; YouTube charges nothing per API call. Credits are spent generating the video and the thumbnail. Plans are $19, $49 and $149 a month for 1,000, 3,000 and 10,000 credits, and every feature is on every plan including Free. The only exception is enterprise SSO.
What is the YouTube caption limit when posting from Paperclip?
A YouTube title is capped at 100 characters. The description is a separate field of up to 5,000 characters, with up to 30 tags. A scheduled item’s text becomes the title, so both must be passed explicitly. Hermoso enforces it when the post is created or queued, so Paperclip is told immediately rather than failing later when nobody is watching.
Can Paperclip schedule a YouTube post for later?
Yes. schedule_post queues it on one calendar shared with every other channel, with a per-channel caption if the copy should differ, and list_scheduled and cancel_scheduled read and pull it back. YouTube is one of the ten channels that queue.
Start free with 30 credits at signup and 250+ more to earn. Every feature is on every plan. Credits are spent only on AI models and Ad Spy research; posting, scheduling, ads management and analytics are free.
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