---
name: instagram_publish_quota
title: "Instagram Publish Quota"
description: "Publish to a shared Instagram account without exhausting its daily API cap, by counting the day's posts across all jobs, ordering the queue, and deferring cleanly on a 429."
version: 1.0.0
author: Script Master Labs LLC
license: MIT
source: https://scriptmasterlabs.com/hive402-skills/instagram_publish_quota/SKILL.md
registry: HIVE402 Skills (https://scriptmasterlabs.com/hive402-skills)
---

# Instagram Publish Quota

## Count the day before publishing

- Count every post already published to the same Instagram account in the rolling 24 hour window before attempting a new one, across all jobs and sessions, not just the current job.

- Treat separate scheduled jobs that share one account as one shared quota, because a morning batch, an evening rotation and a clip backlog all draw from the same daily cap.

- Stop adding new items to the day once the count approaches the cap, and hold the overflow as a named deferred queue instead of attempting it.

## Order the queue before the cap decides

- Put time sensitive posts first, such as a sale or launch window that expires, ahead of the regular product rotation.

- Put the regular product rotation ahead of evergreen backlog items such as brand clips, which lose nothing by waiting a day.

- Publish in that order one item at a time, and verify each post on the account before attempting the next one.

## Stop clean on a 429

- Treat an HTTP 429 from the Instagram Graph API as the cap being reached, make no further publish attempts in that run, and do not retry on a short loop.

- Check the account timeline before any later repost of an item that hit an uncertain result, so a post that actually landed is never duplicated.

- Record quota as freeing only as earlier posts age out of the rolling window, and schedule the deferred queue against that aging, not against the calendar day.

## Report the true state of every item

- Report each queued item as posted with its link, deferred with the cap as the reason, or failed for a stated non quota reason.

- Never report a deferred item as a failed job, and never report the run as finished while items remain silently unattempted.

- Name the highest priority deferred item first in the report, so the next run resumes with it.

## Alternatives for better results

- Spread a large backlog across several days at the planning stage instead of staging it all behind one day's quota.

- Move evergreen backlog items to a channel with no shared daily cap when the same audience can be reached there, and reserve Instagram quota for the posts only it can carry.


---

## From Script Master Labs

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every skill there passed a verification gate before listing: parsed, safety-scanned,
provenance recorded, self-contained. Skills, probed before listed.

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