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POST
/
v1
/
tasks
Add Tasks
curl --request POST \
  --url https://api.lobstr.io/v1/tasks \
  --header 'Authorization: <authorization>' \
  --header 'Content-Type: <content-type>'
Add Instagram profiles or posts as tasks to your squid. The scraper will extract posts, captions, engagement metrics, and metadata from the provided profiles or individual posts. You can provide a profile URL, a single post/reel URL, or just a username.

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Headers

​
Authorization
string
required
Your API authentication token. Value: Token YOUR_API_KEY
​
Content-Type
string
required
Request body format. Value: application/json

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Supported Input Formats

Profile URL: https://www.instagram.com/natgeo/ https://instagram.com/username Single Post URL: https://www.instagram.com/p/ABC123/ Reel URL: https://www.instagram.com/reel/ABC123/ Username only: natgeo cristiano

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Request Body

FieldTypeRequiredDescription
squidstringYesHash of your squid configured with the Instagram Posts Scraper crawler
tasksarrayYesArray of task objects, each containing a url field
You can use just the username without the full URL - the scraper will resolve it automatically.
When scraping a profile, all public posts will be collected. For single posts, only that specific post data is returned.
You can add up to 1000 tasks in a single request for bulk operations.
Duplicate URLs are automatically detected and won’t be added twice.

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Code Examples

curl -X POST "https://api.lobstr.io/v1/tasks" \
  -H "Authorization: Token YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "squid": "YOUR_SQUID_HASH",
    "tasks": [
      {"url": "https://www.instagram.com/natgeo/"},
      {"url": "https://www.instagram.com/cristiano/"}
    ]
  }'

​
Response

200
{
  "tasks": [
    {
      "id": "task_abc123def456",
      "status": "pending",
      "params": {
        "url": "https://www.instagram.com/natgeo/"
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "task_abc123def457",
      "status": "pending",
      "params": {
        "url": "https://www.instagram.com/cristiano/"
      }
    }
  ],
  "duplicated_count": 0
}