I run a small e-commerce brand. One person. No marketing team. No content budget.
Six months ago, I was posting once a week - maybe. Now I publish daily across 5 platforms with consistent branding, scheduled posts, and automated cross-posting.
The entire system runs on Claude Code + a handful of MCP servers. Here's exactly how.
The Problem: Content Takes Forever
The math was brutal:
- 1 Instagram carousel: 2-3 hours (research, copy, design, caption, hashtags)
- 1 blog post: 3-4 hours
- Cross-posting to 5 platforms: 1 hour of manual formatting
That's 6-8 hours for a single piece of content across all channels. At 5 posts per week, I'd need a full-time content person. I couldn't afford one.
The Architecture: Skills + MCP + Scripts
Claude Code's skill system is the backbone. Here's the stack:
Research Layer: WebSearch + NotebookLM + Apify MCP
Creation Layer: Custom skills (content-factory, copywriter, art-director)
Visual Layer: Gemini MCP (image gen) + Puppeteer (HTML to PNG)
Publishing Layer: Platform APIs (IG, Hashnode, DEV.to, Blogger, Medium)
Scheduling Layer: Cron-based scheduled tasks
Each layer has specialized workers - Claude Code skills that know exactly what to do.
Step 1: Research Skills
I have research skills that scan competitors, trending topics, and viral content patterns. They output structured markdown files with hooks, angles, and data points.
The key insight: research and creation are separate skills. A researcher doesn't create. A creator doesn't research. This separation is what makes the quality consistent.
Step 2: Content Factory
A daily skill reads all research files, checks what's already been published (via a publish log), and generates:
- 10 quote posts (HTML with exact brand styling)
- 10 reel scripts (JSON with scene-by-scene timing and animations)
- 10 article drafts (Markdown with frontmatter for each platform)
Everything includes source attribution back to the research that inspired it.
Step 3: Visual Pipeline
Quote posts are HTML files styled with exact brand colors, fonts, and layout. A Puppeteer script converts them to PNG:
node carousel-to-png.js quotes.html output-folder
1080x1080 PNGs, ready for Instagram. No Canva. No Figma. No design skills needed.
Step 4: Platform-Specific Publishing
Each platform has its own publishing script:
- Instagram: Graph API for carousels and reels
- Hashnode: GraphQL API
- DEV.to: REST API with canonical URLs
- Blogger: Google OAuth2 + Blogger API v3
- Medium: Chrome-based flow (API closed since 2023)
Step 5: Scheduling
Claude Code's scheduled tasks run the pipeline daily:
09:00 - Content Factory generates daily batch
10:00 - Publisher distributes to all platforms
11:00 - Instagram post goes live
20:00 - Inventory check + next day planning
Results After 30 Days
- Before: 1 post/week, manual, inconsistent branding
- After: 5+ posts/day across 5 platforms, consistent, automated
- Time spent: ~30 minutes/day reviewing and approving
- Cost: $0 (Claude Code subscription + free API tiers)
What I'd Do Differently
- Start with one platform, not five. Should have nailed Instagram first, then expanded.
- Quality gates matter. Now I have QA skills that review before publishing.
- Research is the bottleneck, not creation. 14 research documents that never became content taught me this.
The Stack
| Component | Tool | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| AI Engine | Claude Code (Opus) | Subscription |
| Image Gen | Gemini MCP | Free tier |
| HTML to PNG | Puppeteer + Node.js | Free |
| IG Publishing | Meta Graph API | Free |
| Blog Publishing | Hashnode/DEV.to/Blogger APIs | Free |
| Scheduling | Claude Code scheduled tasks | Included |
| Research | WebSearch + Apify | $5 credit |
Total monthly cost: Claude Code subscription only.
Building something similar? I'm documenting the entire process. Follow for the next post on how the visual pipeline works.
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