| name | instagram-user |
| description | Instagram profile lookup (bio, links, follower counts, business info), posts, reels, highlights, tagged posts, stories, followers and following lists. |
instagram-user
Instagram profile lookup, timeline browsing, and relationship listing.
Prerequisites
- Node.js 22+ (uses built-in
fetch)
- Chrome with instagram.com logged in (for
auth command)
- chrome-cdp skill installed
Setup
One-time authentication — requires an active instagram.com session in Chrome:
node scripts/instagram-user.mjs auth
Usage
Lookup profile by handle
node scripts/instagram-user.mjs lookup <username>
Returns: id, username, full_name, biography, bio_links, external_url, followers/following/posts counts, profile_pic_url, verification, business info (category, email, phone, address), highlight count.
Lookup profile by numeric ID
node scripts/instagram-user.mjs lookup-id <id>
Same output as lookup.
Recent posts
node scripts/instagram-user.mjs posts <username|id> [--count=12] [--cursor=X]
Returns post objects with caption, like/comment counts, media URLs, carousel items, location, and a nextCursor for pagination.
Recent reels
node scripts/instagram-user.mjs reels <username|id> [--count=12] [--cursor=X]
Returns reel objects (videos) with caption, play count, video URL.
Highlights tray
node scripts/instagram-user.mjs highlights <username|id>
Lists permanent highlight reels (title, media count, cover image). Use highlight id to fetch contents via the instagram-post skill or feed/reels_media/?reel_ids=<id> directly.
Tagged posts
node scripts/instagram-user.mjs tagged <username|id> [--count=12] [--cursor=X]
Posts the user is tagged in.
Active stories
node scripts/instagram-user.mjs stories <username|id>
Currently active 24h stories. Returns empty array if no active stories.
Followers / following
node scripts/instagram-user.mjs followers <username|id> [--count=25] [--cursor=X]
node scripts/instagram-user.mjs following <username|id> [--count=25] [--cursor=X]
Each returns up to ~50 users per page with nextCursor. Note: Instagram heavily limits these for users with large follower counts.
How it works
-
auth — Connects to Chrome via CDP, finds an instagram.com tab, extracts cookies (sessionid, csrftoken, ds_user_id, mid, ig_did, rur, datr) via Network.getCookies, and saves the session to disk.
-
lookup / lookup-id — Calls /api/v1/users/web_profile_info/?username=… (or /api/v1/users/<id>/info/ then resolves to username). Returns a clean profile object.
-
Timeline endpoints — Calls the matching internal endpoint:
- posts:
GET /api/v1/feed/user/<id>/
- reels:
POST /api/v1/clips/user/
- tagged:
GET /api/v1/usertags/<id>/feed/
- highlights:
GET /api/v1/highlights/<id>/highlights_tray/
- stories:
GET /api/v1/feed/reels_media/?reel_ids=<id>
-
Friendships — Calls GET /api/v1/friendships/<id>/{followers,following}/ with cursor pagination via max_id.
All requests use the x-ig-app-id: 936619743392459 header that identifies the web app, plus the x-csrftoken and cookie headers from the saved session.
Data storage
~/.local/share/showrun/data/instagram/
├── session.json # Shared across all instagram skills
└── cache/
├── user-<handle>.json
├── posts-<userId>-<ts>.json
├── reels-<userId>-<ts>.json
└── …
Session expiry
Instagram sessions usually last several weeks. If you get 401/403 errors, re-run auth.
Rate limits
Instagram does not publish web-API limits, but /feed/user/ and /friendships/.../followers/ are aggressively throttled at scale — back off on 429 and avoid tight loops over large accounts.
