youtube-long-form

The growth engine for YouTube long-form — the opposite engine from Shorts. No swipe feed to win; instead a packaging gate (the click) and a retention gate (do they stay, and watch more). It's decoupled from Shorts, though the Short→long click-through is now tracked. (Sibling: youtube-shorts — don't run them as one plan.)

Read these first

brand-profile — niche, positioning, non-negotiables.
voice-builder — so the script and packaging sound like the channel (not generic narration).

The two-metric gate + the dominant signal

CTR gets the click; AVD keeps it. High CTR + low AVD = misleading packaging → demoted; low CTR + high AVD = good content, fix packaging first.
Session contribution is the dominant 2026 signal (it replaced absolute watch time). Videos that extend the session get amplified in Suggested; videos that end sessions get buried. Build each upload as a link in a chain. (Full mechanics: references/longform-algorithm-2026.md.)