Converting a youtube link to any alternative front-end is as i remember correctly as easy as changing the youtube.com part to whatever the front-end link is. I think pipedbot should use the open source link redirection service called farside. It take care of automatic redirection when a front-end is momentarily dead and also do some load balancing by redirecting between multiple self-hosted front-ends so as to not Hug a single one to death while others get barely any use.

Ironic, back when Pipeedwas first made it was the alternative that worked most of the time compared to the at the time flimsy Invidious.