How my comment bot works.

A small program on Cloudflare's free plan wakes up every two minutes and reads the newest comments on my reels through Instagram's official API. No browser tricks, no password sharing.

Each caption says which word to comment. The bot looks for that word on its own, in any case: BOT, bot! and #bot count, robot doesn't.

Instagram lets a business send one private reply to a comment, within seven days. The bot sends the link once per person per reel and posts a short public reply so you know to check your messages. If you don't follow the account, the DM lands in your Requests folder.

It never stores names. To avoid messaging someone twice it keeps a scrambled code for each person it already answered, and the Instagram login it uses is stored encrypted. It has no public web address, so there is nothing for anyone to visit or attack.

$0 so far. Cloudflare's free plan covers the program and the small database it uses to remember who already got a DM.

• A Meta developer app with three Instagram permissions: read your account, read and reply to comments, send messages.
• A Cloudflare Worker on a two-minute timer, plus a D1 database.
• Ask your AI coding tool to write it test first: keyword matching, the seven-day limit, one DM per person.
• Test it with a second account before you point it at your real one.