@inssist/mcp

The MCP server that lets an AI agent work inside your own logged-in Instagram session, through the INSSIST Chrome extension.

Complete docs and install: https://inssist.com/instagram-mcp

Why

Every other Instagram MCP wraps the Graph API: business accounts only, no Stories, no music, no DMs, only what Meta chooses to expose. INSSIST drives the browser you are already signed into, so Claude Code, Codex, Cursor or Claude Desktop can read profiles and DMs, publish and schedule posts, reels and stories with music, pull insights and audience reports, and download media, on a personal, creator or business account alike.

Nothing is proxied through a cloud and no Instagram credentials are ever held: the server hands each tool call to the extension over loopback, and the extension answers from the browser.

Claude Code / Codex / Cursor / Claude Desktop
  │  stdio (MCP)
  ▼
@inssist/mcp
  │  ws://127.0.0.1:48231
  ▼
INSSIST Browser Extension
  │
  ▼
Instagram, in your own session

Requirements

• Chrome (or another Chromium browser) with INSSIST installed and Instagram open and logged in.
• Node.js 22 or newer (npx comes with it).
• An MCP client. Any harness that can launch a stdio server works.

Install

Register the server with your agent. It downloads and starts the server by itself; there is nothing to run by hand.

Claude Code

claude mcp add inssist -- npx -y @inssist/mcp

Codex

codex mcp add inssist -- npx -y @inssist/mcp

Claude Desktop, including Cowork: download inssist-mcp.mcpb and double-click it. One step, runs on Claude’s built-in Node.js, no terminal needed.

Cursor, Windsurf, Gemini CLI and any other client: add this to its MCP config (Cursor: .cursor/mcp.json):

{ "mcpServers": { "inssist": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "@inssist/mcp"] } } }

Connect the browser

1. In Chrome, open instagram.com and click the INSSIST menu.
2. Click Connect to AI Agents and turn the toggle on.
3. The panel shows Connected within a few seconds.

Pairing is automatic: the toggle is the consent. The extension dials the server, both sides store a token for silent reconnects, and turning the toggle off disconnects and stops all retries. Several Chrome profiles can connect to the same server; each shows up as an instance in account_info.

Several agents at once are fine too. Each harness starts its own @inssist/mcp process; the first one to bind the port becomes the hub, later ones join it as peers and relay through it, so Claude Code in two terminals, Claude Desktop and Cursor all share the same browsers. When the hub’s harness closes, one of the peers takes the port over and the extension reconnects to it.

Try it

Who am I logged in as, and how many followers do I have?
Show me the last 5 posts from @nasa with their like counts.
List my unread DMs and draft a reply to the first one. Don't send it yet.
Schedule /Users/me/reel.mp4 as a reel for tomorrow 9am with a caption about spring, and add a trending track.
Run an unfollowers scan and tell me who left this week.
Download the last 20 posts from @natgeo to my machine.

Tools

60 tools, grouped the way the extension’s Tools & features panel groups them. PRO marks tools that need an INSSIST PRO subscription; everything else is free, with no rate limit beyond INSSIST’s own pacing. A PRO tool called without a subscription answers with a short message and an upgrade link instead of failing, so the agent can relay it.

A few shapes worth knowing:

• draft_* vs ig_post_*. Drafts live in INSSIST’s own publishing queue (a draft can be a post, reel, story or carousel; type says which). ig_post_edit / ig_post_delete act on posts already live on Instagram.
• Start, then poll. Long jobs run in the background and are visible in INSSIST’s UI: insights_collect → insights_report, unfollowers_scan → unfollowers_report, antibot_scan → antibot_report, peers_scan → peers_report, downloads_start → downloads_status.
• *_export writes the full list to a CSV via Chrome’s downloads and returns the path, for lists too large to stream into an agent’s context.
• Assets for draft_create are local file paths (the server reads them) or http(s) URLs (the extension downloads them). Up to 100 MB per file, 200 MB per call.
• instance (every tool but account_info): which connected browser profile to use. Defaults to the active one.
• instant (tools that hit Instagram): INSSIST spaces agent calls a few seconds apart on one per-account queue so a burst does not draw a rate block. instant: true skips the queue; agents should use it only when you asked for an immediate action. A call that would wait longer than ~50 s is refused at once with busy: true and a retryAfterMs.

Before a browser connects, the server advertises a snapshot of the tool list bundled with the package, so a harness can list tools with nothing running. Calls against it answer with the connection steps. Once the extension connects, its live list replaces the snapshot and the client gets a tools/list_changed notification.

Privacy

Everything runs on your machine. The server binds 127.0.0.1, accepts connections only from chrome-extension:// origins, and stores one file, ~/.inssist/mcp-pairings.json (mode 0600), holding its own id and one pairing token per browser profile. The extension sends INSSIST its usual anonymous usage events, including the name of each tool an agent calls, never the arguments or results. Instagram traffic is the browser’s own. See the privacy policy.

Configuration

npx @inssist/mcp --version and --help are also available.

Troubleshooting

• “Failed to start the bridge on 127.0.0.1:48231.” Some other program owns that port (another @inssist/mcp would have been joined, not refused). Find it with lsof -nP -i :48231 (macOS/Linux), or set INSSIST_MCP_PORT to a free port here and in the extension.
• The panel stays on “Waiting…”. The server is not running. Make sure your MCP client has started it (most start servers lazily, on the first tool call or when you open the session) and that nothing else answers on the port. Turn the toggle off and on to reconnect at once.
• Tools answer “No INSSIST browser is connected”. The toggle is off, Instagram is not open in that Chrome profile, or the extension is still connecting. Check the panel says Connected.
• A protocol-version message. The extension and the server disagree on the wire format. Update whichever the message names: the extension at chrome://extensions → Update, the server with npx @inssist/mcp@latest (or clear the npx cache) and restart the harness.
• A PRO tool returns an upgrade message. Expected without a subscription; the agent will relay the link.

Development

npm install
npm run build               # compile (in the INSSIST monorepo this also refreshes the tool snapshot)
npm test                    # build + unit tests (node --test)
node scripts/smoke.mjs 60   # spawn the built server, list tools, call account_info

mcp-bridge-manifest.json is the tool snapshot, generated from the extension source and committed here on each release. It is not hand-edited.

Security and support

Report vulnerabilities to [email protected] (see SECURITY.md). Support and questions: the same address, or inssist.com/support. MIT.