After a lot of struggles with the Family Link setup (see my earlier posts) I decided to build my own channel monitor.
I wanted a simpler way for parents to monitor whether their child's YouTube channel has public videos. This tool, deployed in my ACA environment, sends an email the moment a video is made public on a monitored channel.
The idea is simple: the parent gets an email alert as soon as a public video appears. That makes it a lightweight safety check without needing to manually inspect the channel.
What makes this project interesting is the mix of technologies behind it:
- Google YouTube API to inspect the channel and detect public videos.
- Azure Container Apps Job to run the check as a scheduled background task.
- Azure Communication Services to send the email notification.
I already work with Azure, so that side was familiar. What made this especially interesting was the Google integration and the fact that I hadn't used Azure Communication Services before. It turned into both a practical tool and a good learning project.
The goal was to build something small, reliable, and genuinely useful.
