YouTube Brain

Source Intake and Refresh

2 min read

Source Intake and Refresh

YouTube’s rules move fast, so the brain stays trustworthy only if its sources are dated and refreshed on a schedule. This flow defines how new sources enter the brain and how stale ones are caught. It is the operational backbone behind the refusal rule that no growth, revenue, or policy claim ships without a current official or primary source. The ledger lives in references/source-ledger.json and the dated pack in research-pack-2026-06-23.

Refresh cadence

  • Monthly: YouTube Help Center pages and Studio analytics references, the fastest moving facts.
  • On changelog: recommendation and monetization policy changes, for example the inauthentic content policy or a mid-roll update.
  • Quarterly: practitioner benchmarks such as vidIQ and TubeBuddy data.

Intake steps

  1. Capture. File the raw source under .raw/research/ with its URL and retrieval date. Deep-research reports land here.
  2. Record. Add a ledger entry to references/source-ledger.json with id, title, url, source_type, retrieved, a future refresh_due, confidence, and specific claims.
  3. Cite. Add the source to research-pack-2026-06-23 so the dated pack stays complete.
  4. Synthesize. Update the affected concept notes and their Sources sections, then update index and the changelog.

Refresh steps

  1. Find due sources: any entry whose refresh_due has passed.
  2. Re-verify the claim against the live page; update retrieved, refresh_due, and the claim if it changed.
  3. Propagate changes to the concept notes that cite the source.
  4. Record the refresh in the changelog with the date and what changed.

Fast-moving facts to watch

The highest risk facts are monetization thresholds and mechanics: YouTube Partner Program eligibility, the 45 and 55 percent splits, Mid-Roll Ads rules, Shorts Monetization mechanics, and the Advertiser-Friendly Guidelines. Re-verify these before any monetization recommendation, including inside the Channel Health Audit.

Guardrails

  • No credentials, tokens, cookies, or private audience data enter the repo, ever.
  • No claim without a dated source; an undated claim is a defect.
  • Recommend, do not mutate; the brain is read only toward any real account.

Sources

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Backlinks