How I run a channel with it
Slopify was built to run one channel: slow, narrated lore for people falling asleep. This is how a lore channel runs on it, including the parts that are still done by hand.
One template for every video
A lore channel works when every video sounds and looks like the last one, so the whole setup lives in one template, saved from Play once it is right:
-
An article prompt with one keyword,
{{Topic}}: a calm documentary, chapters of similar length, no invented sources. - One narration voice and one image style, so video 1 and video 30 match.
- The video settings: slow zoom, cuts that follow the narration, chapter cards, captions.
- The YouTube description with chapter timestamps, and shorts cut from the video.
The title is a pattern too, for example History at Bedtime: {{Topic}}, so
each new topic is the only thing that changes.
A schedule that works through topics
The schedule runs the template on a list of topics, one per run, at a set time. The topic list is written in one go and the schedule works through it. A run that fails stops with the reason on the step, and is retried from there instead of starting over.
From 3.0 the schedule also has a series brief: what the channel covers and which topics are worth a video first. When the queue runs low, it suggests the next topics itself and never repeats a title it has made or queued. This channel has it hold them: the suggestions wait on the Calendar, and only the ones approved there join the queue.
Checking the work
Checkpoints stop the run before narration, before the images and before the video, so a bad article never costs a narration. A new template runs with all three on; once its videos come out right, the one before the video is enough.
From 3.0 a reviewer model looks first: it checks the article against the prompt's rules, each image for stray text and malformed hands, and the narration against the article, and sends the work back with its reasons. After 2 retries (the default) the item is kept and flagged for a person to decide.
Characters and places come from the channel's cast: a reference image each, used whenever a topic names them, so a character looks the same in video 1 and video 40.
Uploading
Slopify never publishes. When a video is done, download it with its thumbnail, copy the description and tags from the project page, and upload in YouTube Studio. The shorts go up the same way, one at a time, each with its own title and hashtags.
From 3.0, Prepare upload does the typing: it opens Studio's upload page and, once the video is dropped in, fills the title, description with chapters, tags, thumbnail, audience and playlist. You check it and press Publish.
What it costs
The review before Start shows the estimate for the run. Articles written with the Claude Code, Codex or Gemini CLI cost nothing extra on a subscription; narration and images are paid per use with your own keys. Settings → Usage counts the tokens, narration seconds and images every run used.
What is still by hand
- Deciding which topics get made, and reading the article before it is narrated.
- Watching the finished video once before it goes up.
- Pressing Publish in YouTube Studio. That stays with the person on purpose.
The walkthrough on the home page shows these screens with a demo project. The code is on GitHub.