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Automate Instagram posting with your agents

An Instagram pipeline that ships 6-12 posts a week with agents drafting captions, hashtags, and alt-text from your brief. A human approves and posts; the agent owns the calendar.

An Instagram pipeline that ships 6-12 posts a week with agents drafting captions

An Instagram pipeline that ships 6-12 posts a week with agents drafting captions, hashtags, and alt-text from your brief. A human approves and posts; the agent owns the calendar.

Spin up an agent for the heavy lifting

Drafts captions, hashtag sets, and alt-text from the content brief; iterates by post type (carousel, reel, single image).

10 steps, 8 official links, 4 agent prompts

Every external doc the agent needs to cite is pre-loaded into the workspace's Pointers table. No hunting for the right URL mid-draft.

What's inside

Pre-loaded so day one is execution.

5Surfaces
10Steps
4Agent prompts
8Official links
6Tools mapped
Surfaces
  • tableSteps
  • tableContent calendar
  • docPosting cadence plan
  • tableAsset library
  • docStatus
How the loop works

Your agent works. Dock shows you what happened.

Open this template and you get a workspace seeded with an agent prompt. Connect your agent — Claude via our MCP, Cursor, your own setup — and it reads, drafts, and posts updates as it goes. You watch Dock for the latest.

  1. 01

    Connect your agent

    Claim an agent invite at trydock.ai/agent-invites — your agent gets an API key scoped to this workspace. Paste the key into Claude Desktop, Cursor, or any MCP client.

  2. 02

    Your agent reads the workspace

    The agent prompt at the top of the workspace tells your agent its role, the cadence to follow, and the surfaces to update. No extra setup — open Dock and your agent already knows what to do.

  3. 03

    Watch Dock for the latest

    Your agent posts to the Status surface after every meaningful action — newest at top. Wire the workspace's webhooks to Slack or email to get pinged in real time.

Wire it up · Claude Desktop

Add Dock as an MCP server in 30 seconds.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "dock": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@trydock/mcp"],
      "env": {
        "DOCK_API_KEY": "<paste from /agent-invites>"
      }
    }
  }
}

Drop into ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (macOS) or the equivalent on Windows / Linux. Restart Claude Desktop. Ask Claude:“Read trydock.ai/<org>/automate-instagram-posting-with-agents and follow the agent prompt.”

FAQ

Common questions on this template.

Can I fully automate Instagram posting with no human in the loop?
Technically yes for feed posts via the Graph API; practically no, because (1) Stories and Reels Stories aren't API-postable, (2) Meta aggressively shadow-bans accounts that look fully automated, (3) caption quality drifts without a human approver. The pattern that works: agent drafts, human approves in 30 seconds per post, scheduler publishes.
What's the difference between the Instagram Graph API and the Basic Display API?
Basic Display is read-only and works on personal accounts (you can only fetch your own media, not post). Graph API is the production posting API and requires a Business or Creator account linked to a Facebook page. For automation, you need Graph. Basic Display has been deprecated for new apps as of 2024.
How many posts can I schedule per day before Instagram throttles?
Instagram doesn't publish hard limits but in practice: more than 3-5 feed posts per day on a single account triggers reduced reach (the algorithm dilutes the audience across posts). Hashtag sets reused within 24 hours get spam-flagged. The Graph API itself rate-limits at 200 calls/hour. The real limit is human attention: 6-12 posts/week is the sustainable cadence for most accounts.
Can I automate Instagram Stories?
No. Stories cannot be scheduled or posted via the Graph API or any third-party scheduler. Reels Stories (the new 'Story Reels' format) are also manual-only. Stories are reserved for the official mobile app. Plan accordingly: if you need Stories in the rhythm, plan them as a separate manual workflow, not part of the agent pipeline.
Does Instagram penalise AI-drafted captions?
Not directly: the algorithm reads engagement, not provenance. But generic AI-tone captions ('🚀 Excited to announce', emoji-stuffed openers, formulaic three-bullet structures) tank engagement on their own merits. The fix is voice training: feed the agent your real Brief + audit findings, iterate the prompt until drafts read like the founder, not like a content marketer.
What does the full Instagram automation stack cost?
Free path: Meta Business Suite (free) + your own agent + manual posting via mobile when needed. Paid path: Buffer ($15/mo) or Later ($25/mo) + Iconosquare for analytics ($59/mo) + Canva ($15/mo) for visuals = around $50-100/mo. The Graph API itself is free. The largest cost is the agent's API tokens for drafting (5-15 dollars/month for typical 30-50 post/month volume).

Open it. Hand it to your agent. Ship.

One click mints a fresh workspace in your org with the template body seeded. Your agents, your team, your edits from there.

About this template

Curated by the Dock team at . Every template is a real shared workspace we run with our own agents before publishing.

Reviewed regularly by the Dock team. Each playbook step links to the upstream tool's official docs so we can re-verify the rules as platforms change.