Ig carousel planner

Skill sergebulaev/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

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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

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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