How to Show Your Latest YouTube Videos in Your GitHub Profile README

The github-readme-youtube-stats Action pulls your latest videos from your YouTube channel's public RSS feed and formats them as a list or table in a designated section of your README. It runs on a GitHub Actions schedule, committing an updated README whenever new videos are published.

The widget shows your most recent video titles, thumbnails (optional), view counts, and publish dates. For developers with active YouTube channels — particularly coding educators, tutorial creators, or live streamers — this is one of the highest-signal additions to a profile, demonstrating both technical knowledge and the ability to communicate it clearly.

Follow these steps:

1. Find your YouTube Channel ID. Visit your YouTube channel, go to Settings → Advanced Settings → Your channel ID (starts with UC...).
2. Add comment markers to your README where videos should appear:

## Latest YouTube Videos
<!-- YOUTUBE-CARDS:START -->
<!-- YOUTUBE-CARDS:END -->

3. Add a YT_TOKEN secret to your repository: a YouTube Data API v3 key from Google Cloud Console (free, requires enabling YouTube Data API v3).
4. Create .github/workflows/youtube-cards.yml:

name: Update YouTube Cards
on:
  schedule:
    - cron: '0 0 * * *'
  workflow_dispatch:
permissions:
  contents: write
jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3
      - uses: DenverCoder1/github-readme-youtube-stats@latest
        with:
          youtube_api_key: ${{ secrets.YT_TOKEN }}
          channel_id: YOUR_CHANNEL_ID
          comment_tag_name: YOUTUBE-CARDS

The Action supports configuration for how videos are displayed:

• max_videos: Number of videos to show (default: 6)
• youtube_api_key: Your YouTube Data API v3 key (required)
• channel_id: Your YouTube channel ID starting with UC...
• comment_tag_name: The identifier used in your README comment markers

For a more lightweight approach without the YouTube API key, use the gautamkrishnar/blog-post-workflow Action with YouTube's public RSS feed:

- uses: gautamkrishnar/blog-post-workflow@v1
  with:
    feed_list: "https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=YOUR_CHANNEL_ID"
    comment_tag_name: YOUTUBE
    template: "- [$title]($url)"
    max_post_count: 5

This simpler approach shows video titles as links without thumbnails but requires no API key.

If the Action fails with a 'YouTube API quota exceeded' error, note that YouTube Data API v3 has a daily quota of 10,000 units. Each execution uses approximately 100 units — a daily schedule will use 100 units per day, well within the free quota. If you're running the workflow multiple times manually, you may temporarily exhaust the daily limit.

If the comment markers are not being updated, check that the comment_tag_name parameter in your workflow matches exactly the tag used in your README. Case and spacing matter — YOUTUBE-CARDS in the YAML must match <!-- YOUTUBE-CARDS:START --> in the README.

For channels with very few videos or no recently uploaded content, the Action may commit no changes. The README section will remain as last updated until new videos are published.