TSW Shorts Factory

Autonomous YouTube Shorts video factory — zero cost, no external video API required. Generates quote-based short-form videos daily using edge-tts (free Microsoft neural voices) + Pexels stock footage (free API) + MoviePy local assembly, then uploads to YouTube as drafts. Use when: setting up automated YouTube Shorts content pipelines, replacing broken video generation APIs, building faceless quote/motivation channels, or automating social video content at scale.

Zero-cost autonomous YouTube Shorts pipeline. Ships 3 videos/day, no paid APIs.

Stack: edge-tts (free) → Pexels clips (free API) → MoviePy (local) → YouTube upload

Quick Deploy

# 1. Install dependencies
pip install moviepy edge-tts google-api-python-client google-auth-oauthlib pillow

# 2. Set Pexels API key (free at pexels.com/api)
export PEXELS_API_KEY="your_key_here"

# 3. Set up YouTube OAuth (one-time)
python3 scripts/yt_setup.py  # Opens browser for auth

# 4. Prepare quote library
cp assets/sample_quotes.json quote_library.json  # Or provide your own

# 5. Run once to test
python3 scripts/pipeline.py

# 6. Add to cron (3x daily)
# 0 8,14,20 * * * cd /your/path && python3 scripts/pipeline.py >> pipeline.log 2>&1

Quote Library Format

{
  "motivational": [
    {"quote": "Champions keep playing until they get it right.", "author": "Billie Jean King"},
    {"quote": "The secret of getting ahead is getting started.", "author": "Mark Twain"}
  ],
  "sports_quotes": [
    {"quote": "I am the greatest.", "author": "Muhammad Ali"}
  ]
}

Supported niches: motivational, sports_quotes, business_quotes, film_tv_quotes, wisdom_philosophy

Video Output

• Format: MP4, vertical 1080x1920 (Shorts-optimized)
• Duration: matches TTS audio length (~15–45 seconds)
• Text overlay: quote + author, centered, white with black stroke
• Background: 4 rotating Pexels stock clips matched to niche
• Uploaded as unlisted drafts — human reviews before publishing

Configuration

Variable	Default	Description
PEXELS_API_KEY	required	Free at pexels.com/api
YT_TOKEN_FILE	~/.yt_token.pickle	YouTube OAuth token
OUTPUT_DIR	/tmp/tsw_output	Video output directory
AUDIO_DIR	/tmp/tsw_audio	TTS audio cache
CLIP_CACHE_DIR	/tmp/tsw_clips	Pexels clip cache (reused)

Cost

• edge-tts: free (Microsoft neural voices via unofficial API)
• Pexels: free tier (25,000 requests/month)
• MoviePy: free (local ffmpeg)
• YouTube API: free (10,000 units/day quota)
• Total: $0/month for ~90 videos/month

References

• YouTube setup: See references/youtube-setup.md
• Adding niches: See references/niche-config.md
• Troubleshooting: See references/troubleshooting.md