Ig carousel planner

Skill sergebulaev/instagram-skills/.codex-marketplace/instagram-skills/skills/ig-carousel-planner

Instagram marketing skills for Claude Code and Codex: captions, carousels, hooks, hashtag strategy, and a weekly plan. Draft, humanize, and publish via Publora. MIT.

Install

npx -y skills add sergebulaev/instagram-skills --skill ig-carousel-planner

Assembled from the repository path, not quoted from the project. Check it against their README if it does not work.

One thing to look at

6 stars6 stars. Stars are a popularity signal and not a quality one, but at this level it is likely that nobody has read this closely except its author, and you would be relying on your own review.

What its author says it does

Copied from the file, not written here

Plan an Instagram carousel slide by slide, up to 10 slides, with a hook slide that opens a loop, value slides that front-load the payoff, and a payoff slide that earns the save and follow. Picks a 2026 carousel formula (listicle, before/after, myth-buster, framework) by goal (saves, shares, follows), drafts each slide's text plus the caption, then publishes the images you supply via Publora. Use to structure a multi-slide carousel. Not for single-image captions (use ig-caption-writer).

SKILL.md

5.3 KB, as published. Nobody here has run it

Instagram Carousel Planner

Plan a carousel that gets swiped to the end and saved. The whole game is slide 1 (the swipe-earning hook) and the last slide (the saveable payoff). This skill maps every slide, writes the on-image text, and drafts the caption that frames it.

When to use

User wants to turn a topic or notes into a multi-slide carousel
User has a list, a framework, or a transformation to teach
User wants a slide-by-slide structure, not just a caption

Formulas this skill uses (carousel shapes)

Code	Formula	Primary goal	Best for
IG5	Listicle Carousel	saves	a numbered teaching list, one item per slide
IG6	Before/After Transformation	saves, follows	proof of a result with the steps between
IG7	Myth-Buster	shares	correcting beliefs your niche holds
IG8	Steal-This Framework	saves	a named, repeatable framework

Full skeletons in ../../references/hook-formulas.md.

Slide architecture (the 10-slide spine)

A carousel is 2-10 slides (API limit). The reliable spine:

Slide	Role
1 (hook)	the promise + an open loop ("most miss #4"). Earns the swipe. Big text, one idea.
2-3	the strongest value, front-loaded (swipe-through decays with depth).
4 to N-1	one point per slide, each standing alone, each readable in 2 seconds.
N (payoff)	the one-slide summary (the saveable artifact) + one clear ask (save / follow).

6-10 slides is the sweet spot for a teaching carousel. Fewer than 4 is usually a single image. See references/slide-architecture.md for per-formula spines.

Steps

Gather inputs. Topic, the list/framework/transformation, target audience, and the goal (saves / shares / follows).
Pick the formula. Use the goal table; suggest 2-3 that fit and let the user choose.
Set the slide count. Match it to the real content (6-10 typical). Never pad to hit 10; viewers feel filler and bail.
Write slide 1. The promise plus the loop. Big, single-idea on-image text. Front-load a number if one fits.
Map the value slides. Put the strongest point on slide 2 or 3. One point per slide, each able to stand alone. Draft the on-image text for each (keep it short, it has to read in 2 seconds on a 4:5 frame).
Write the payoff slide. A one-slide recap that is worth saving on its own, plus a single ask (save it / follow for more).
Write the caption. The caption supports the carousel (it can be short), restates the hook for the fold, and carries the hashtags. Hand off to ig-hashtag-strategist or apply the 3-5 sized set.
Humanizer pass on the on-image text and caption.
Approval card. Show: formula, slide-by-slide outline with each slide's text, the caption, hashtag set, primary goal, and a reminder that the user supplies 2-10 images (all images, no mixed media) in this order.
On approval, publish with media. Call lib.publish(kind="carousel", draft_text=<approved caption>, target_url="https://www.instagram.com/", media=[<slide image paths in order>], platforms=[<INSTAGRAM_PLATFORM_ID>], scheduled_time=<iso_or_None>). The wrapper uploads each image in order and schedules. With no media or no Publora key it returns the plan as a copy-paste block plus the slide order.

Hard rules

Global voice rules: see root SKILL.md Voice rules. Additional skill-specific rules:

Slide 1 is a promise with an open loop, never a bare title.
Front-load value to slides 2-3; never bury the best point at the end.
One point per slide, readable in 2 seconds on a portrait 4:5 frame.
2-10 slides only. Never pad to a round number.
All images, no mixed media (the API rejects an image+video carousel).
The last slide must earn the save with a one-slide summary and one ask.

Anti-patterns (skill will refuse)

A title-only slide 1 with no promise or loop.
A 10-slide carousel padded from a 4-point idea.
The strongest point saved for the final slide.
Three competing CTAs on the payoff slide.
Mixing images and a video in one carousel.
On-image walls of text that cannot be read in a swipe.
Em dashes, AI vocab, rule-of-three.

Resources

../../references/hook-formulas.md - the carousel formulas (IG5-IG8) with skeletons
../../references/algorithm-heuristics.md - 2026 carousel ranking and swipe-through rules
../../references/hashtag-strategy.md - the 3-5 sized hashtag recipe
../../references/media-workflow.md - uploading 2-10 images in order
references/slide-architecture.md - per-formula slide spines and on-image text rules

Related skills

ig-caption-writer - when the idea is a single image, not a carousel
ig-hashtag-strategist - build the sized hashtag set
ig-humanizer - scrub the on-image text and caption
ig-hook-extractor - reverse-engineer a carousel you admire