hermes-youtube-faceless-news

Hermes — YouTube faceless daily-news automation

Source of truth

content/yesterday-news/<YYYYMMDD>/ in C:\ANTIGRAVITY:

• metadata.json — title, tags, date, sources[] (title/source/url)
• script.txt — narration script (already written; do NOT invent stories)

Latest day = the newest dated folder. If the newest folder's date == today, use the folder dated yesterday; otherwise use the newest folder.

Pipeline (one video per cycle)

1. Read metadata.json + script.txt from the target day folder.
2. Clean the script: strip HTML tags (<p>, […], links), keep only the narration. Cap at 8 stories / ~60s of audio. Preserve the intro line "Welcome to Yesterday's News Today for <date>."
3. Write the cleaned script to ops/marketing-inbox/youtube-<date>-script.md (marketing-inbox = approval queue; nothing publishes without Joshua approval).
4. Render plan (faceless): one generated stock-style image per story (the repo has no stock library — use a deterministic 16:9 placeholder background + large caption text; do NOT download arbitrary web images without license checks), 3-5s per story, 1080x1920 (shorts) or 1920x1080.
5. Voiceover: generate TTS per story line. If no TTS tool is configured, produce a .srt-style caption file instead and mark voiceover UNVERIFIED — never fake an audio file.
6. Assemble: ffmpeg image+audio -> mp4 (shorts: -s 1080x1920, h264, yuv420p).
7. Evidence: write ops/packets/hermes-youtube-<date>/ with the cleaned script, render commands used (real output), asset manifest, and the mp4 path + duration from ffprobe. Report VERIFIED / UNVERIFIED per line.
8. Upload: only after Joshua records approval. Upload via the approved YouTube channel path only; never a personal/third-party channel.

Hard limits

• No invented stories: content comes ONLY from the day folder.
• Business-only copy (product-copy-business-only). No charity vocabulary.
• Nothing publishes without Joshua's recorded approval (marketing-inbox).
• Report every claim with an evidence handle (file path, command output).
• Never touch .env or credentials; never push/merge (judge lane only).

Output

The packet in step 7 + one JSON drop to ops/marketing-inbox/ listing: date, title, story count, script path, asset manifest, video path, duration, and publish status (PENDING unless Joshua approves).

• House rules: docs/house/HOUSE-MOTION-RULE.md and docs/standards/AGENT-STANDARD.md. Read before any design, site, dashboard or header job. Pointers only; do not restate rules here.
• Current beats existing: fetch and pull main first; origin main wins over clone, cache, journal and definition file; a clone that cannot fast-forward stops and reports (ops/handoffs/FABLE-HANDOFFS-2026-11-06.md section 0).