"AI will teach you to make engaging stories" — every other reel promises that. In reality Claude out of the box guesses at content instead of building it by engagement rules. instagram-skills fixes that: it gives the agent hooks, trend signals and a weekly plan. 🔥
What it is and who it's for
An open set of 9 Agent Skills for Instagram marketing, for Claude Code and Codex. Author — Serge Bulaev (the Creative Content Crafts studio). The skills teach the agent to write not a "generated" post but content by the rules: a hook in the first 125 characters, an open loop in the carousel, a weekly plan with reels/stories/carousels and trending hashtags.
Who it's for: vibe coders, product people and creators who run an Instagram and want Claude to produce hooks and a plan rather than filler. Honestly: this is about hooks, captions and strategy, not "a button that draws your stories" — images and video are still on you (Instagram doesn't let you publish plain text).
Key capabilities
- Hook Extractor — reverse-engineers the hook from any viral reel or carousel: breaks down why it worked and gives you a skeleton for your own topic. This is the core of "engaging".
- Caption Writer — a caption with the hook inside the first 125 characters (everything after that is behind "more"), a skimmable body, one CTA.
- Carousel Planner — lays a carousel out across slides (up to 10): the hook slide opens a loop, value goes up front, the final slide is the payoff.
- Content Planner — a weekly plan with a Reels / carousel / stories mix, a hook for each day and posting times; the goal is saves and shares.
- Hashtag Strategist — a set of 3–5 hashtags sized to your niche (niche/mid/broad), ones you can actually rank for, instead of 30 of them.
- Audience Insights — via Apify, scans a hashtag and shows the posts that are moving right now (trend signal).
- Plus Humanizer (cuts AI cliches and emoji storms), Repurposer (LinkedIn/blog/YouTube → a native carousel), Profile Optimizer (profile audit).
- Optionally Publora — connect it for automatic media upload and post scheduling.
Get started in 5 minutes
- In Claude Code add the marketplace and install the set:
/plugin marketplace add sergebulaev/instagram-skills
/plugin install instagram-skills@instagram-skills
Universally (any agent following the agentskills standard): npx skills add sergebulaev/instagram-skills. Codex has its own codex plugin ... commands.
2. Give the agent a competitor's viral reel and say "pull out the hook" — Hook Extractor fires. Then: "build a weekly plan with stories/reels/carousels for the niche sk_... + Platform ID).
When to use it, when not to
✅ Take it if you run an Instagram and want Claude to produce hooks, captions and a weekly plan by engagement rules rather than "generated" text. ✅ Take it if you need to break someone's viral reel/carousel down to its hook and repeat the move on your own topic. ❌ Skip it → use charlie947/social-media-skills instead (bigger, 20 skills, an author with 350k+ followers by his own claim) if you're more about LinkedIn and Reels scripts than Instagram alone. ❌ Skip it if you're expecting "a button that draws story slides": these are text and strategy skills, they don't generate visuals. For story images take canvas-design or an image generator. ❌ Skip it if you need one narrow skill for your own brand — build it with skill-creator.
The honest price
The skills themselves are free, MIT licensed, installed from GitHub, no card required. But the two integrations are third-party services with their own terms: Apify (for Audience Insights — hashtag scanning) and Publora (media upload and post scheduling) charge by their own plans/limits — check their sites. Without them the core skills (hooks, captions, plans) still work. Tag: free / oss.
Gotchas
- This is not an Instagram plugin and not an autoposter by itself: the skills upgrade the agent, publishing is done by Publora or by you manually.
- There's no dedicated "Stories" skill: stories live inside Content Planner as part of the weekly mix (what to post and when + the hook); the skill doesn't draw finished slides.
- You need an agent that supports Agent Skills (Claude Code / Codex and compatible ones). Without one it's useless.
- The set is new and niche: it updates actively (v1.0.8 from 2026-07-14), but the GitHub star count is still modest — check the current commands and descriptions in the README.
- Instagram won't let you post plain text — media is always on you.
- The "2026 ranking signals" and hook formulas are the author's methodology, not a reach guarantee: they help you work by the rules, but promise nothing about the algorithm or the outcome. Treat it as a checklist, not a magic button.
🤖 Prompt accelerator
"I've connected instagram-skills to Claude Code. Here's a competitor's viral Reel: <LINK/DESCRIPTION>. 1) Pull out the hook (Hook Extractor) and explain why it engages. 2) For my niche
and audience , build a weekly plan (Content Planner): a reels/carousel/stories mix, a hook for each day, posting times, goal — saves and shares. 3) For the top 3 ideas write captions with the hook inside the first 125 characters and one CTA. No AI cliches (Humanizer). I'll add the visuals myself."