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Give Claude or Cursor read-only access to public Instagram data with one MCP URL

#mcp #ai #api #instagram

If you ask an AI assistant about an Instagram account, it usually guesses. So it can't help with a competitor or a creator you want to research.

We built a remote MCP server for this. You sign in once in the browser, and the assistant gets 20+ tools for public Instagram data: profiles, posts, reels, stories, highlights, comments, hashtags, places and audio.

Add it to your client

The server speaks MCP over Streamable HTTP at https://data.fastsocial.co/mcp.

Claude Code

claude mcp add --transport http instagram-data https://data.fastsocial.co/mcp
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Then run /mcp, pick instagram-data and sign in.

Cursor (.cursor/mcp.json or ~/.cursor/mcp.json)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "instagram-data": {
      "url": "https://data.fastsocial.co/mcp"
    }
  }
}
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VS Code (.vscode/mcp.json)

{
  "servers": {
    "instagram-data": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://data.fastsocial.co/mcp"
    }
  }
}
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Claude app: Settings > Connectors > Add a custom connector > Paste the URL > Leave the OAuth fields empty

The first connection opens a sign-in page: you enter your email, type the code you get, and click Allow. A free plan is created if you don't have one.

If your client can set headers but can't do the browser sign-in, use an API key instead:

claude mcp add --transport http instagram-data https://data.fastsocial.co/mcp --header "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY"
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What you can ask

Once connected, normal questions work:

  • "Compare the engagement rate of @nasa and @spacex."
  • "Show me @natgeo's current stories and summarise them."
  • "Find 10 accounts similar to @humansofny."
  • "Get download links for every slide of this carousel: https://www.instagram.com/p/..."

The assistant picks the tool (instagram_insights, instagram_stories, instagram_similar, instagram_media) and gets JSON back. Photos and videos come back as downloadable links, not files.

Limits worth knowing

  • Public data only. A private account returns a private_account error.
  • Account owners can opt out, after which their account returns 451 opted_out.
  • Each call costs credits from a monthly allowance, from 1 to 3 per call.
  • Every tool is marked readOnlyHint: true. There are no write or delete tools.

If your client only runs local stdio servers, the same tools are on PyPI as instagram-data-mcp.

Links

If you just want to look at stories without code, the same backend runs our free Instagram story viewer.

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