Post Reels and Carousels With a Grok Bot Template for Instagram Posting

Scheduling Reels from a chat window is the part of a Grok bot template for Instagram posting that surprises people. You type a sentence, the bot picks the right postType, uploads the video, and books it. The AdaptlyPost template ships with the Instagram path already documented, so the Bot never has to guess which of Instagram's three post types you meant.

The short version: install the template, paste an adaptly_ token, then say "schedule this as a Reel for tomorrow 9am". The bot calls POST /social-posts with instagramConfigs[].postType = REEL and your video in mediaUrls.

What is a Grok bot template for Instagram posting?

A Grok bot template for Instagram posting is a share link that copies a configured Grok Bot, including a skill that documents the Instagram half of the AdaptlyPost API, into your own Grok Bot app. xAI turned on template sharing on 28 August 2026. The template carries the instructions, never the credentials, so your Bot posts to your Instagram account and nobody else's.

The template is the same one behind the Grok bot template for social media posting guide. This page covers the Instagram-specific fields, because Instagram is the platform where the wrong field costs you a failed post.

What does postType actually control?

Instagram accepts exactly three values in instagramConfigs[].postType, and each one changes what media the API demands.

Ask the bot for "a Reel" and it sets REEL. Ask for "a post" and it sets FEED. The skill text tells it to confirm which one before publishing, so a vague request gets a question rather than a wrong post type.

How do I schedule an Instagram carousel from Grok?

Give the bot up to ten image URLs and it sends them as one FEED post with mediaUrls in the order you listed them. Instagram renders that as a carousel, and the order in the array is the order a reader swipes through. There is no separate carousel flag.

You:  Schedule a carousel for Thursday 10am with these five product shots,
      caption: "Five ways teams use AdaptlyPost this month."
 
Bot:  POST /upload-urls  -> 5 presigned URLs
      PUT  each image
      POST /social-posts
        platforms: [INSTAGRAM]
        contentType: CAROUSEL
        instagramConfigs: [{ connectionId: "...", postType: "FEED" }]
        mediaUrls: [ ...5 publicUrl values, in order... ]
        scheduledAt: "2026-09-03T10:00:00"
        timezone: "Europe/Kyiv"

The upload step matters. AdaptlyPost does not accept raw bytes on POST /social-posts, so the bot asks for presigned URLs first, PUTs each file, then passes the returned publicUrl values. Skipping that is the most common reason a media post fails on the first try.

How do I install the template?

Installing the AdaptlyPost Grok bot template takes about three minutes: open the share link in Grok Bot, create an adaptly_ API token, paste it into the credential field, and ask the bot to list your connected accounts.

Which Instagram account types can the bot post to?

The bot posts to Instagram Business and Creator accounts, because those are the only types Instagram's publishing API accepts. Personal accounts can be converted in the Instagram app in about a minute, and the connection then shows up in GET /social-accounts like any other. If the account never appears after connecting, it is almost always still a personal profile.

Can Grok write the caption as well as schedule it?

Grok drafts the caption and AdaptlyPost publishes it, which is the split that makes this worth wiring up. You give the bot a topic or a rough draft, it writes the caption, and platformTexts lets it send a different caption to Instagram than to the other eight networks in the same call.

That last part is the reason to post through one API instead of nine. The same launch announcement can run long on LinkedIn and tight on Instagram without you writing it twice.

What breaks on Instagram specifically?

Three things fail often enough to name, and none of them are bugs.

Reels reject still images, so a REEL post with a JPEG in mediaUrls comes back as a platform error rather than a validation error. Stories ignore captions entirely, so text you write for a Story is silently dropped by Instagram. And carousels cap at ten items, so an eleventh URL fails the whole post rather than trimming.

Check GET /social-posts/{id}/results after anything goes out. It reports per platform, so a post that succeeded on X and failed on Instagram tells you exactly that, and POST /social-posts/{id}/retry retries only the failures.

Frequently asked questions

Does the Grok bot template post to Instagram without asking me?

No. The skill instructs the bot to confirm the target accounts, the exact caption, the post type and the schedule time before any call that publishes. The shipped routine also requires per-post approval for its first three runs.

Can the bot post Instagram Stories on a schedule?

Yes. Set postType: STORY and a scheduledAt time, and the Story publishes then. Instagram's own 24-hour expiry starts at publish time, not at schedule time, so a Story booked for 9am disappears at 9am the next day.

How many Instagram posts can it schedule at once?

The bot schedules 100 posts in a single POST /social-posts/bulk call. A month of daily Reels fits in one request. Instagram's own publishing rate limits still apply after that.

Why does my Instagram account not show up in the bot's list?

The account is almost certainly a personal profile. Instagram's publishing API only accepts Business and Creator accounts, so a personal profile connects but never appears as a publishable target in GET /social-accounts.

Is there a Grok bot template for other networks?

Yes. The same template covers nine networks, and there are platform-specific guides for Facebook, LinkedIn, X and TikTok. For templates outside AdaptlyPost, groktemplates.dev collects Grok bot templates by use case.

Install the AdaptlyPost Grok bot template and schedule your first Reel from a chat, or read the API docs first.

Sources: the AdaptlyPost OpenAPI spec, x.ai/bot, and @bot on X (28 August 2026). Checked 30 August 2026.