Here's the goal: Claude tells you what's working in your niche, turns your idea into a reel script with the hook scored before you film, writes the caption, scores your profile, and drafts your comments and replies. Then you post it yourself. It's the free Instagram Agent Skill on GitHub: 13 Claude skills, MIT license, no signup, no API key and nothing connected to your account.
The part I like best is what it won't do. It doesn't post, like, follow or DM for you, because bots doing that is how accounts get restricted. This guide is the whole setup: the install, the voice file every skill reads, a free first test, and the exact prompt for each of the six jobs from the video.
Start here: paste this into Claude Code
Not technical? Start here. Install Claude Code (the first step under “Install the skills” below), open a terminal, and start it. Then paste the prompt and it walks you through the rest one step at a time: the install, your voice file, a free test and the six skills. It checks with you before anything that costs money, reaches a real person or deletes something, and it never posts for you.
cd ~
claudeHi Claude. Please be my patient setup helper. I run a business, I'm not technical, and I've never used a terminal much. Go one step at a time, tell me exactly what to type or click, and wait for me to say done before the next step.
Goal: install the free Instagram Agent Skill (13 Claude skills that help me decide what to post on Instagram and write it), fill in my voice file, run a free first test, and then use six of the skills: finding what's working in my niche, writing a reel script with a scored hook, the caption, my profile score, comments on other people's posts, and replies on my own. I post everything myself, by hand. Follow this guide; it's the source of truth for every step and command:
https://receiptsgroup.com/guides/claude-instagram-skills
Words to explain to me in plain English the first time you use them: terminal, Claude Code, skill, slash command, plugin, marketplace, git, clone, folder path, Python, script, voice file (voice.md), hook, median, outlier multiple, swipe file, beat sheet.
Steps:
1. Ask what computer I'm on. The commands in the guide are for a Mac, Linux, or Windows with WSL. If I'm on plain Windows, tell me and help me do the same steps your way.
2. Check that git and python3 are installed (git --version, python3 --version). If a Mac asks to install developer tools, tell me what that is and let me say yes.
3. Install the skills the guide's way: clone the repo into my home folder and copy the ig- folders into ~/.claude/skills. Show me each command before you run it, and show me the list of folders afterwards.
4. Copy the voice template to ~/.claude/instagram/voice.md. Then help me fill it in, one section at a time. If I paste three of my own captions or reel scripts, write it from those and show me the draft first. Never put a number, client name or result in it that I didn't give you.
5. Free first test: run hookscore.py from the ig-reel folder on the three example hooks in the guide, then on three of my own. Explain the scores in one line each.
6. Then walk me through the six skills in the guide's order (/ig-viral, /ig-reel, /ig-caption, /ig-profile, /ig-comment, /ig-reply), one at a time, using the guide's prompts.
Rules:
- Never log in to Instagram for me, never ask for my Instagram password, and never build or run anything that collects from Instagram automatically or posts, likes, follows, comments or sends messages for me. Instagram's terms ban that and it gets accounts restricted. I post and comment myself.
- Never make up a number, a customer, a review or a result. If a draft needs a number I haven't given you, leave the blank and tell me.
- Stop and check with me before anything that costs money (like upgrading a plan).
- Stop and check with me before anything that reaches a real person: I post, comment and reply myself, after I've read it.
- Stop and check with me before you delete or overwrite any file, including my voice.md or the skill folders.
- Ask me before you assume anything about my business, my customers or my accounts.How the pieces connect
This is the manual way: every step and every command. Claude follows it too. The skills are plain text files that teach Claude a job, plus five small Python scripts that run on your own computer. Nothing connects to your Instagram account, and nothing posts.
- 1Your voice file~/.claude/instagram/voice.md (you fill it in once)→ how you talk, who you talk to, what you never say
- 2What's working/ig-viral, with you reading Instagram in your own browser→ a swipe file of reels that beat their account's usual
- 3The script/ig-reel (26 hook formulas, hookscore.py, beats.py)→ three scored hooks, the script, on-screen text, a timed beat sheet
- 4The caption/ig-caption (caption.py)→ a linted caption and what the feed shows before “... more”
- 5You post itThe Instagram app, by hand→ the reel, live
- 6The comments/ig-reply on yours, /ig-comment on other people's→ drafts you read and post yourself
/ig-profile sits off to the side: run it once, fix your profile, and run it again when you change what you sell. /ig-reel and the weekly planner read the swipe file, so once /ig-viral has run, the rest of the pack works from what's actually working in your niche instead of from defaults.
Words you'll see
- Skill: a folder with a SKILL.md file that teaches Claude one job. You start one by typing a slash and its name, like
/ig-reel. - Plugin: a bundle of skills you install through Claude Code's
/pluginmenu instead of copying folders. - Hook: the first line of a reel, the two or three seconds that decide if anybody keeps watching.
- Median: the middle number. An account's median views is what a normal reel of theirs gets.
- Outlier multiple: a reel's views divided by its account's median. The skill counts anything over about 3x as a signal.
- Swipe file: your list of hooks and formats that are working, saved to
~/.claude/instagram/swipe.md. - Beat sheet: the script split into lines with a time on each, so you know how long it runs before you film.
Install the skills
Install Claude Code
Skip this if
claude --versionalready prints a version. Claude Code needs a paid Claude plan (Pro, Max, Team or Enterprise); the free plan doesn't include it. The first time you runclaude, it opens your browser to log in.curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.sh | bash # open a NEW terminal window, then: claude --versionCheck for git and Python
git downloads the skills from GitHub; Python runs the five scripts. Each command should print a version number. On a Mac, if it asks to install the command line developer tools, say yes and run the command again.
git --version python3 --versionDownload the skills and copy them in
This puts the repo in your home folder and copies the 13
ig-skill folders to~/.claude/skills, where Claude Code looks for your personal skills in every project.cd ~ git clone https://github.com/Jakeschincariol/instagram-agent-skill.git mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills cp -r instagram-agent-skill/skills/ig-* ~/.claude/skills/ ls ~/.claude/skillsPermissionsNothing asks for a login or a key. The repo's own README says: no signup, no API key, nothing to connect.Start Claude and check a skill shows up
Start Claude, type
/igand the 13 skills should show in the list. If Claude was already open when you copied them, close it and start it again.claude
/plugin marketplace add Jakeschincariol/instagram-agent-skill
/plugin install instagram-agent@instagram-agent-skillFill in your voice file (do this before anything else)
Every skill reads one file to sound like you: who you are, who you talk to, how you talk on camera, what you'd never say, and the real numbers you're OK putting your name on. The repo says it's about ten minutes, and it matters more on Instagram than anywhere, because you have to say the words out loud. If the proof section is empty, drafts come back with {{your number}} in them instead of a made-up one, which is exactly what you want.
Copy the template
The last line opens it in TextEdit on a Mac. On anything else, open the file in any text editor.
mkdir -p ~/.claude/instagram cp ~/instagram-agent-skill/templates/voice.md ~/.claude/instagram/voice.md open -e ~/.claude/instagram/voice.mdFill it in, or have Claude draft it
The template's sections: who I am, what I sound like, my positions (three to five things you believe that some of your audience doesn't), off limits, proof I can use, and the ask. The repo's tip: give Claude three of your own reels or captions and let it write the file from those. Read every line it writes.
Write my ~/.claude/instagram/voice.md from the template that's already there, using these three captions or reel scripts of mine: 1. <paste> 2. <paste> 3. <paste> What I do: <one sentence>. Who I'm talking to: <be specific, like homeowners in my area with a leak>. Leave Proof I can use empty unless I give you a real number. Show me the whole file before you save it.
First test: score three hooks (free, runs on your computer)
This runs the hook scorer straight from your terminal, no Claude at all, so it doesn't touch your plan's usage. Paste it in a terminal (not inside Claude). The three lines are Example (made up) hooks for a roofer.
printf '%s\n' \
"Hey guys, today I want to talk about roof leaks" \
"The one question I'd ask before any roofer gets on your roof" \
"Three things your roofer should check before they quote you" \
| python3 ~/.claude/skills/ig-reel/hookscore.py -Good: a ranked list with a score and a STRONG, OK or WEAK label on each, the weakest property under each one, and the greeting near the bottom with a dealbreaker note (“Greeting. Nobody came to the feed to be greeted.”). Now swap in three of your own and run it again.
Read the scores the way the repo says to. Its maker tested it on 74 real hooks: it's good at catching weak ones and close to a coin flip at telling which of two decent hooks will do better. So use it to kill the bad ones before you film, then let your own retention graph pick the winners.
python3 ~/.claude/skills/ig-reel/hookscore.py --hook "<your hook>"The six jobs from the video
Start claude, then use these in this order the first time. Each one hands you text to read and post yourself. Swap the parts in angle brackets for your own.
/ig-viral: find what's working in your niche, and why
It ranks reels by how far each one beat its own account's median, not by raw views, because a small account doing ten times its normal found something you can copy, and a huge account's big number might be a slow day. It wants 6 to 12 accounts within about 10x your size: about 4 in your trade, 4 with the same customers in a different trade, and 2 to 4 bigger ones for format only. You read Instagram in your own browser and paste what it asks for (followers, the account's typical views, the reel's views, the first line). It never logs in and never scrapes. Run it monthly, not daily. It saves the result to
~/.claude/instagram/swipe.md./ig-viral My niche is <your trade and area>. My account has about <your follower count> followers. Accounts I already watch: <handles>. Propose the rest and wait for my OK. Then tell me exactly what to copy from each profile into a table, and I'll paste it. Don't log in or open Instagram for me./ig-reel: an idea into a script, with the hook scored first
It writes three hooks off three different formulas from its 26, scores them with
hookscore.py, writes the script on the winner, times it withbeats.py, and flags a hook that runs past three seconds or a beat that sits too long. If the best hook scores under 50, it tells you you don't have the hook yet. Give it the one true thing that happened, and the number if you have one./ig-reel <your idea, plus the one real thing that happened and the real number if there is one>. Target 30 seconds. Use my swipe file if it's there./ig-caption: the caption, checked
It shows you the first 125 characters the way the feed shows them before “... more”, checks that there's one ask, flags more than five hashtags, and checks that the words people would search for are in the caption. Give it two or three phrases a customer would actually type.
/ig-caption Here's my reel script: <paste>. The phrases I want to be found for: <two or three, like a customer would type them>. My ask: comment <one word>./ig-profile: score your profile out of 100
It scores 12 parts of your profile (name field, bio, link, highlights, the three pinned posts, the grid and more) and rewrites them in the order that loses you the most points. Expect a low first score; the skill says most profiles land in the 30s and 40s. You change each field in the app yourself.
/ig-profile Here's my profile. Name field: <...>. Handle: <...>. Bio: <...>. Link goes to: <...>. Highlights: <names>. Pinned: <what's pinned>. My last nine posts are about: <one line each>./ig-comment: comments on other people's posts
You paste the post and it gives you two comments of different types (add a fact, ask the real question, a short story of when you did it, and so on), one to three sentences, never a pitch. Pick one, change what you want, and post it from your own account.
/ig-comment Post from @<account>: <paste the caption, or what the reel says>. Give me two options and tell me which you'd post./ig-reply: the comments under your own posts
It sorts your comments into keyword, lead, substance, question, support and noise, then drafts replies in that order. A question a lot of people have gets flagged as worth a whole reel instead of a reply. It never mass-messages anybody, and neither should you.
/ig-reply Here are the comments on my latest reel, with names: <paste>. Sort them, draft the replies, and flag any question worth its own reel. I'll post the replies myself.
The other seven are in the same pack: /ig-carousel, /ig-story, /ig-plan (the week), the humanizer (it strips the stuff that makes writing sound like AI), /ig-dm, /ig-repurpose (one long video into a week of short ones) and /ig-audit (a look back at what you already posted).
I run something like this for our own company: it finds the videos that beat their creator's usual, and a lot of what we film starts there, because I'd rather copy what already worked than guess.
No Claude Code? Paste one skill into a chat
The README says you can open any one SKILL.md on GitHub, copy all of it, and paste it at the top of a Claude chat, and it works as a mode. You lose the five Python scripts (the hook scorer, the beat sheet timer, the caption checker, the humanizer and the swipe ranker), which are most of the point of the reel writer and the humanizer, but the rest still works. That's the cheapest way to try it, on any Claude plan.
Use the instructions above as your job for this chat. I don't have the Python scripts it mentions, so do those checks by reading instead, and tell me where that's less reliable. Never make up a number or a result for me.What it costs
| Tool | Plan | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Instagram Agent Skill | Free, MIT license | $0 |
| Claude Code | Claude Pro | $20 a month billed monthly, or $17 a month billed $200 a year |
| Claude Code | Claude Max | From $100 a month |
| Claude chat only (paste a SKILL.md) | Claude Free | $0, without the Python scripts |
| Your own account | $0 |
The free Claude plan doesn't include Claude Code, so the full setup starts at Pro. The five scripts run on your computer and cost nothing to run.
When it breaks
/ig-reel doesn't show up when you type /ig
ls ~/.claude/skills: you should see the ig- folders. If they're there and Claude was open when you copied them, run /reload-skills or close Claude and start it again. Claude Code's docs say a new top-level skills folder that didn't exist when the session started needs that reload.You installed the plugin and /ig-reel isn't there
/instagram-agent:ig-reel. If /plugin install can't find it, run the /plugin marketplace add line first.git: command not found or python3: command not found
The drafts sound generic, or nothing like you
~/.claude/instagram/voice.md. Paste three of your real captions and have Claude rewrite it.A draft has {{your number}} in it
The hook scored STRONG and the reel still flopped
/ig-viral wants you to paste a lot
You want it to post for you
You want the newest version
cd ~/instagram-agent-skill && git pull, then the cp -r line again. That overwrites the copied skill folders, so if you edited a file in them (like the list of banned words), save your edits first. For the plugin, open /plugin, go to Marketplaces and choose Update marketplace.You want it gone
/plugin uninstall inside Claude Code. Copied folders: ask Claude to list and remove only the ig- folders in ~/.claude/skills, and check the list before you say yes, because a delete doesn't come back. Your voice file and swipe file live in ~/.claude/instagram if you want to keep them.That's the setup
Claude finds what's already working, scores your hook before you waste a take, and writes the caption and the replies, and the one thing it won't touch is the post button, which is exactly how I'd want it.
Checked on Oct 31, 2026 against
Every claim about a third-party tool in this guide (plans, prices, menu paths, commands, limits) was checked against these official pages on Oct 31, 2026. These screens change often: if something looks different, trust the page over this guide.
- Instagram Agent Skill: READMEThe 13 skills, the three ways to install (paste, copy the folders, plugin), voice.md, the five scripts, the hook scorer's own test, and that nothing posts.
- ig-viral SKILL.mdRanking by outlier multiple over each account's median, the account mix within about 10x your size, reading not scraping, monthly, swipe.md.
- ig-reel SKILL.mdThree hooks from 26 formulas, hookscore.py and beats.py, the under-50 rule, {{your number}} instead of made-up numbers.
- ig-caption SKILL.mdThe 125-character feed preview, one ask, up to five hashtags, search phrases in the caption.
- ig-profile SKILL.mdThe 12-part, 100-point profile score, the pinned three, fix-first rewrites.
- ig-comment SKILL.mdTwo comment options of different types, one to three sentences, no pitching.
- ig-reply SKILL.mdSorting comments into six buckets, and replying to a common question with a reel.
- voice.md templateWhere the voice file goes and its sections.
- Claude Code docs: SkillsPersonal skills in ~/.claude/skills, starting one with a slash, /reload-skills.
- Claude Code docs: Install and manage plugins/plugin marketplace add, /plugin install name@marketplace, scopes, /plugin-name:skill names, updating and uninstalling.
- Claude Code docs: Advanced setupThe install command, claude --version, and that the free plan doesn't include Claude Code.
- Claude: Plans and pricingPro at $20 a month billed monthly or $17 a month billed $200 a year, Max from $100 (checked 2026-10-31).
- Instagram Help Center: Terms of UseNo accessing or collecting information in an automated way without Instagram's permission, and no engaging in automated ways.
Questions people ask about this
