PLAYRIVET — the upfront presentation · season 2026 daily quota budget: 9,500 units · writes: only on diff
PlayRivet

A pitch for your watch page

A playlist that programs itself.

Pick the channels, set the standards, and PlayRivet keeps the playlist current on your real YouTube account — with complimentary alpha access.

Your playlists stay on YouTube. Watch in the app you already have.

The slate

Six shows already ordered.

Each one is a real rule, written the way the person who wanted it said it out loud.

Series 01 · nightly

“All long-form uploads from my 12 tech channels, newest first, no Shorts.”

24:06 18:52 32:40

MKBHD · Veritasium · 3Blue1Brown + 9 more

12 channel sourcesMin 8:00No ShortsNewest first

Series 02 · weekly

“Everything under 20 minutes from the four cooking channels — that's the whole of dinner.”

12:24 08:57 16:03

Babish · Ethan Chlebowski · Kenji López-Alt + 1 more

4 channel sourcesMax 20:00No liveGrouped by channel

Series 03 · nightly

“New videos from the channels I follow, but drop anything with ‘reaction’ or ‘podcast’ in the title.”

21:17 44:05 15:31

Wendover · Tom Scott · CGP Grey + 27 more

Exclude: reactionExclude: podcastTitle matchNewest first

Series 04 · commute

“Anything over 40 minutes I can put on for the drive, oldest first so I never skip one.”

52:19 1:12:44 48:30

LEMMiNO · Jacob Geller · Fall of Civilizations + 5 more

Min 40:00No ShortsOldest firstDaily refresh

Series 05 · shift work

“Our three training channels, sorted shortest to longest, so new hires start small.”

04:12 09:48 26:30

Onboarding · Safety · Tooling — internal channels

3 channel sourcesSort by lengthNo liveDaily refresh

Series 06 · standing order

“Only videos with ‘review’ in the title or description, from my six gear channels.”

08:44 23:15 31:02

MKBHD · Project Farm · DankPods + 3 more

Include: reviewTitle + description6 channel sourcesNewest first

Ratings report

Right now you're programming it by hand.

You subscribed to the channels you actually care about. Then YouTube decided what you see, Watch Later filled up with things you will never watch, and the only playlist that works is the one you rebuild yourself on a Sunday night.

Dead air

The subscription feed is mostly noise

Shorts, livestream announcements, a re-upload, a channel you watched once in 2022. The three uploads you wanted are somewhere below the fold.

Unaired inventory

Watch Later is a graveyard

Four hundred items deep, no order, no filter, nothing ever leaving. It stopped being a queue the week you started using it.

Manual scheduling

You rebuild the playlist every week

Open each channel. Check what's new. Add the long ones. Remove what you watched. Then do it again next week, forever.

Casting

Paste a channel. That's the setup.

URL, @handle or raw channel id — PlayRivet takes whichever one you have in the clipboard and resolves it to the channel's uploads feed. Add as many sources as the playlist needs; every new upload from any of them is a candidate.

Cast list · Weekly LongformSourcing
youtube.com/@deepcutsURL
@gadgetlabHandle
UC8butISFwT-Wl7EV0hUK0BQID
youtube.com/@studiobreakfastURL

4 sources resolved · 1 playlist · 0 search calls

Standards

Every rule is a rule.

Keywords in or out, matched on title and description. Minimum and maximum duration. No Shorts. No live or upcoming streams. Filters are ANDed, so a video that fails one fails the lot — and you can see exactly which one it failed.

Standards memo · rev 4In force
Excludetitle or description contains “reaction”
Excludetitle or description contains “podcast”
Includetitle contains “review”
Duration08:00 minimum · 90:00 maximum
Formatno Shorts · no live or upcoming
24:11

Split ergo board: 40 days later

@gadgetlab · cleared

Cut 11:38

Reacting to the new keyboard

@gadgetlab · failed: exclude “reaction”

19:47

Budget studio monitors, reviewed

@studiobreakfast · cleared

5 filters · all must pass · 2 cleared, 1 cut tonight

Running order

You decide what airs first.

Newest first, oldest first, grouped by channel, or sorted by length. The order is part of the rule, so it survives every refresh — new uploads slot into the right place instead of landing at the bottom of a pile.

Running order · newest firstLocked
Newest firstOldest firstBy channelBy length
  • 0128:14Why difficulty settings lie — @thelonggame
  • 0217:02Color grading with $0 and spite — @studiobreakfast
  • 0341:36I reviewed 40 mechanical keyboards — @gadgetlab
  • 041:04:09The lost pilot: oral history — @deepcuts

Order re-applied on every sync

For the money people in the room

Fresh playlists cost quota.
Ours runs on pocket change.

1 vs 100

Units to find new uploads

Reading a channel's uploads playlist costs 1 quota unit per page. A search costs 100. So PlayRivet reads. That's the whole trick — the rest is just doing it on schedule.

50/write

Why we never rebuild

Every playlist write costs 50 units. PlayRivet diffs what should be there against what is there, then applies only the inserts, removals, and reorders that actually changed.

From greenlight to air

Four meetings.
Then it runs itself.

01

Greenlight

Connect your YouTube account. PlayRivet puts consent on the record before it touches a single playlist — no record, no sync.

02

Cast

Add channels by URL, @handle, or id, or add a search query. Search and custom ordering are included with complimentary alpha access.

03

Standards

Set the filters: keywords in or out, min/max duration, no Shorts, no live or upcoming streams. Every rule is ANDed. No surprises on air.

04

Air

Alpha users get a daily refresh. PlayRivet syncs the diff and records every move. You just watch.

Standards & practices

The fine print, in full.

  • Consent — every managed playlist carries a consent record; no record, no sync.
  • Pause — stop syncing anytime; YouTube stays exactly as it is.
  • Disconnect — revokes the OAuth token remotely and locally.
  • Delete — account deletion cascades to every rule, source, filter and log.
  • Receipts — every insert, removal and reorder lands in the activity log.
  • Storage — OAuth tokens are stored Fernet-encrypted, never in the clear.

Questions from the floor

Before the lights come up.

QDoes this touch my other playlists?

A

No. PlayRivet only writes to the playlists you designate, and inside those it will never remove an item it did not add itself. Anything you dropped in by hand stays where you put it.

QWhat happens if I unsubscribe from a channel?

A

Nothing — PlayRivet works from the sources on the rule, not from your YouTube subscriptions. Drop a channel from the rule and its videos stop being candidates on the next refresh.

QDoes this cost me anything on YouTube's side?

A

No. API quota is PlayRivet's problem, not yours — that's why the engine reads uploads at 1 unit instead of searching at 100, and writes only the diff. You never see a quota number unless you go looking for one.

QWhat data do you store?

A

Your rules, your sources and filters, the activity log, and an OAuth token stored Fernet-encrypted. No watch history, no viewing behaviour. Delete the account and all of it goes with it.

QWhere does the playlist actually live?

A

On your real YouTube account, as a normal playlist. It plays in the YouTube app on your phone, your TV and your browser, with no PlayRivet in the loop.

Prime time is whenever.

Renewed for every season. Automatically.

Connect YouTube

Tokens encrypted at rest · only the playlists you designate · disconnect anytime