v2.4.0 — Guided setup walkthrough

🧭 New: guided walkthrough for first-time setup

npm run walkthrough

Built for people setting this up for the first time (also offered when you run npm run setup). Five steps, ~10–15 minutes:

1. System check — Node, FFmpeg, folders, database, .env — auto-fixed where possible
2. AI provider — plain-English cost/capability comparison (Gemini free tier recommended), exact instructions for getting each key, the key page opened in your browser, and your key is live-tested the moment you paste it — no more discovering a bad key hours later
3. YouTube connection — click-by-click Google Cloud instructions (project → enable API → consent screen → Desktop OAuth client), then browser-based sign-in — no more copy-pasting authorization codes. Entirely skippable: videos still generate locally without it
4. Channel basics — name, posting frequency, audience; safe defaults for the rest
5. Capability summary — what your pipeline can do, and exactly how to fix anything missing

Every step is skippable and progress is saved after each one — quit any time and resume with npm run walkthrough.

🐛 Fixed along the way

• .env files were silently ignored — dotenv was in the dependencies but never loaded, so .env settings (API keys, API_KEY, FFMPEG_PATH) only worked if you exported them in your shell. Now loaded by index.js and the setup tools.
• .env.example had an uncommented placeholder key that would have been treated as a real OpenAI key once dotenv loads — all placeholders are now commented out.
• YouTube OAuth opens your browser automatically instead of making you copy a URL.

Upgrading

git pull && npm install

Tests: 16/16 passing.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code