plan-video

The saved excerpt is a snapshot from review. The external source remains the complete and most current version.

---
name: plan-video
description: "Create a complete YouTube video plan with title options, thumbnail concepts, hooks, and content outline. Use when planning a new video, creating title/thumbnail/hook options, or when the user says 'plan a video', 'video plan', 'plan my next YouTube video', or 'I want to make a video about'."
---

# Plan Video

## Overview

This orchestrator sequences foundation skills to produce a complete video plan: researched titles, thumbnail concepts, hook strategies, and a content outline. It manages the user selection workflow between steps but delegates all content generation to specialized skills.

**Core Principle**: This is a thin orchestrator. All content generation goes through foundation skills — that's where the proven patterns, formulas, and quality logic live. This skill manages workflow sequence, user decisions, and plan file assembly only.

## How Reference Delegation Works

Each step below invokes a foundation skill that owns its own reference files. When you invoke `creator-stack:title`, it loads `references/youtube-title-formulas.md` from its own directory. When you invoke `creator-stack:thumbnail`, it loads `references/thumbnail-formulas.md` from its own directory. You don't need to manage these paths — just invoke the skill and provide context.

## YouTube-Specific Context

### Episode Directory Convention

All episode files live under `./youtube/episode/[episode_number]_[topic_short_name]/`.

- **Research file**: `research.md` in the episode directory
- **Plan file**: `plan.md` in the episode directory
- **Thumbnails**: saved to the episode directory during finalization

### Channel Information

If a local channel context file exists (e.g., `./youtube/channel.md` or similar), load it at the start of the workflow to provide channel-specific context to downstream skills.

## YouTube MCP Tools Available

When `creator-stack:research` is invoked from this orchestrator, the YouTube Analytics MCP tools are available for data gathering:

- `search_videos` — find videos by keyword, channel, or criteria
- `get_video_details` — video stats, views, likes, comments, publish date
- `get_channel_details` — channel metadata, subscriber count, video count
- `get_video_comments` — comment text and sentiment data
- `get_video_transcript` — full video transcript
- `get_related_videos` — videos related to a specific video
- `get_trending_videos` — currently trending videos
- `get_video_enhanced_transcript` — enhanced transcript with timestamps

The YouTube Researcher agent (defined in this plugin's `agents/youtube-researcher.md`) can also be used for structured data gathering tasks.

## When to Use

Use this skill when:
- Research has been completed and you need to create a video plan
- The user asks to plan a new video
- You need title, thumbnail, hook, and outline options for a video
- You want to produce a production-ready plan with multiple options for user selection

## Prerequisites

Research for the video must be completed first. Either:
1. Research file exists at `./youtube/episode/[episode_number]_[topic_short_name]/research.md`, OR
2. Invoke `creator-stack:research` to conduct research first (YouTube MCP tools are available)

## Planning Workflow

Execute all steps below in order. Track progress systematically.

### Step 0: Load Research

Read the research file for this episode:
- Location: `./youtube/episode/[episode_number]_[topic_short_name]/research.md`

If research does not exist, invoke `creator-stack:research` first. The YouTube MCP tools are available from this orchestrator context, enabling the research skill to gather YouTube-specific data.

The video plan should incorporate research findings at each step — research grounds every recommendation.

### Step 1: Create Plan File

Create a new plan file at: `./youtube/episode/[episode_number]_[topic_short_name]/plan.md`

If a plan file already exists, read it to understand what has been done so far and continue from there.

Initialize the