Introduction

INFO

Documentation is still under constructions.

What is Social Connector?

Social Connector is a lightweight TypeScript-based client for communicating with Instagram Basic Display API. The main use case for Social Connector is allowing users to upload photos from their Instagram to your app. It is the first functionality that is available, but further functions can be added as well. Adding more social networks, with the same API towards your app, is also a possibility for the future.

It can also be an example on how to integrate Instagram Basic Display API on your own, without using the package directly.

WARNING

While the origins of Social Connector are in code living in production, this open-sourced package is still in unstable version 0.x. The API may change. Bugs may appear. Take extra care if using in production, and consider pinning to a specific patch version.

Why I've made Social Connector?

Facing the project of integrating an app with Instagram Basic Display API to allow users to upload photos from their Instagram account, I found that the information out there to do such project is lacking. Unlike Facebook, which has a proper JavaScript SDK available, integrating with Instagram requires handling extra steps for each app integrating with it - duplication of code without any real need for it. The documentation for handling the entire flow is not complete and every developer working on such integration has to fill in some steps on their own.

If your app is integrating with multiple social networks for the same features (such as, uploading a photo from the social network to the app) - you can also abstract a lot of logic to your own API, and simplify your app code accordingly.

The project's goal is to answer to both points: allow a simple and easy integration with Instagram Basic Display API, while also allowing abstraction of other social networks' APIs to use the same interface for simple integration.

Features

• Connect your Webapp to Instagram Basic Display API.
• Get the User's photos.
• Pagination of the API responses.
• Use a custom HTTP request handler if needed / preferred.

Limitations

• No support for videos yet (but can be easily added).
• No support for Carousel Album.
• Cannot login using a Hybrid Web App. A capacitor.js plugin solving it will be released soon.
• Only uses a short-term token for a single session. Long-term pairing with Instagram (and usage of a long-term token) is not supported and will require more integration effort (as it depends on the framework used for frontend and backend).

Note

This package is not connected, affiliated, endorsed or supported by Instagram or Meta Platforms in any way. All trademarks and copyrights belong to their respective owners. You may only use Instagram Basic Display API according to Instagram's terms of service and policies, and must go through Instagram's app review to go into production.