AI video automation engine - generate & publish YT shorts with Veo-3 or Sora 2

Product Overview

Scale short-form content without scaling your team. This template turns idea discovery → prompt & text generation → Veo-3 video rendering → vertical formatting → multi-channel publishing into one cohesive pipeline. It’s built natively on n8n, so you keep full control, self-host if you want, and extend every step with your own logic.

What’s Inside (Modular Building Blocks)

• Idea Engine – AI generates concise, surprising facts and a visual metaphor per topic (swappable LLM/provider).
• Prompt & Text Composer – Crafts an 8-second, cinematic Veo-3 prompt + title, caption, description, hashtags, tags in a consistent brand voice.
• Renderer Integration – Kie.ai → Veo-3 (16:9, 1080p) for fast, cinematic clips.
• Vertical Formatter – FFmpeg pipeline converts to 1080×1920, adds top/bottom text bands (15–20 words), and preserves loop smoothness.
• Multi-Channel Distribution – Uploads to YouTube Shorts and Telegram for internal review/approvals.
• Scheduler & Orchestration – CRON triggers, retries, and lightweight polling make the system dependable for daily publishing.

Why These Components (and why they work together)

• Veo-3 via Kie.ai provides a sweet spot of quality + speed, ideal for short loops where style coherence matters.
• n8n brings vendor-neutral orchestration: swap LLMs, add rate limits, branch flows, or trigger on events—without rewriting your stack.
• FFmpeg ensures a platform-native look (9:16, crisp text bands, no blurry hacks).
• Separation of concerns (idea → text → render → edit → publish) makes it easy to A/B test any stage independently.

Key Benefits

• Hands-Free Consistency – Daily output with a repeatable creative pattern that audiences recognize.
• Brand-Safe Copy – Titles, descriptions, and hashtags follow a controlled structure—polished by design.
• Time Savings – Replace fragmented tooling with one pipeline; no manual re-formatting, captioning, or re-uploads.
• Creator-Grade Quality – Cinematic loops optimized for watch time and retention on Shorts/Reels.
• Own Your Stack – Self-hosted orchestration and storage; no lock-in.

Reuse & Extension Ideas

• Topic CMS – Feed topics from Google Sheets / Notion and mark each as “published”—perfect for content calendars.
• Multi-Language – Duplicate the text composer for EN/DE outputs; upload the same clip with localized metadata.
• Thumbnail/Preview Track – Add an image generator step for platform cards or YouTube custom thumbnails.
• Analytics Feedback Loop – Fetch video performance, score ideas, and prioritize winning angles automatically.
• Compliance & Fact Trails – Store sources next to each post for quick audits and edits.
• Storage & Delivery – Push masters to S3/Backblaze, serve via CDN for faster IG ingestion.
• More Channels – Add TikTok, X, LinkedIn publishers or a newsletter export.
• A/B Creative – Render multiple Veo-3 seeds, rotate captions/CTAs, and compare retention.

Who It’s For

• Agencies wanting repeatable, branded Shorts at scale.
• Creators & Media Teams who need daily output with minimal overhead.
• Product Marketing looking to convert docs/reports into snackable, evergreen video facts.
• Startups building audience fast without adding headcount.

Technical Notes (at a glance)

• Orchestration: n8n (self-hosted or cloud)
• Video: Veo-3 via Kie.ai (16:9 render → FFmpeg vertical remaster 1080×1920)
• Text Stack: Any LLM provider (swappable); outputs normalized for each platform
• Distribution: YouTube Data API v3, Telegram Bot API
• Security: API keys via n8n credentials/ENV; public URL endpoint only serves whitelisted .mp4 filenames with proper headers
• Reliability: CRON triggers, bounded retries/polling, and safe fallbacks to avoid stuck runs

Who to use it

To enhance the completeness, add specific step-by-step setup instructions for users to implement the workflow easily:

1. Install Prerequisites

   • Set up n8n on your server or local machine (production mode with reverse proxy).
   • Install FFmpeg and ensure fonts (e.g., DejaVu Sans) are available.

2. Configure API Credentials

   • Get a Perplexity API key for idea generation.
   • Request a Kie.ai API key for Veo-3 video rendering.
   • Set up YouTube OAuth2 (enable YouTube Data API v3 in Google Cloud Console).
   • Create a Telegram bot token via BotFather.
   • Store all keys as environment variables in n8n (avoid hardcoding).

3. Prepare Storage

   • Create a working directory accessible by n8n with read/write rights.
   • Ensure enough disk space for video caching (approx. 50–200 MB per run).

4. Set Scheduling

   • Add CRON triggers for automatic execution (e.g., twice daily).
   • Example:

     0 12 04 * * * → 04:12 AM daily
     0 12 16 * * * → 04:12 PM daily
     

5. Define Variables

   • File naming conventions:
     • name_vorher = raw 16:9 video
     • name_nachher = final 9:16 video
   • Set topic = content niche (e.g., history, ocean, futurism).

6. Build Workflow Steps in n8n

   • Idea Generation: Perplexity node for viral fact.
   • Prompt Agent: Expand into full package (prompt, caption, hashtags).
   • Video Generation: Kie.ai Veo-3 API request (poll until success).
   • Download & Edit: Save raw file, convert to 9:16 with FFmpeg overlays.
   • Notifications & Uploads:
     • Telegram node → send video.
     • YouTube node → upload with title, description, tags.

7. Test End-to-End

   • Run the workflow manually once.
   • Verify video rendering, FFmpeg subtitles, Telegram message, YouTube & IG uploads.

8. Go Live

   • Enable CRON triggers.
   • Monitor first runs for errors (API limits, FFmpeg paths, token expiry).

Why Buy This Template

You’re not buying a script—you’re buying a production-ready system with a deliberate creative pattern, best-practice formatting, and shipping-grade integrations. It reduces ramp-up from weeks to hours and gives you a flexible base you can keep evolving.