Profile

When to use this

Pass a username or profile URL. Follower and following counts come from public profile data. Post count and higher resolution images depend on what Instagram returns; missing fields are null.

Parameters

All parameters go in the query string.

Example request

Replace YOUR_API_KEY with your key, or set LURKAPI_KEY for the code. Get a free key.

curl "https://api.lurkapi.com/v1/instagram/profile?username=nike" \
  -H "x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY"

const params = new URLSearchParams({
  username: "nike",
});
const res = await fetch(`https://api.lurkapi.com/v1/instagram/profile?${params}`, {
  headers: { "x-api-key": process.env.LURKAPI_KEY },
});
const data = await res.json();
if (!data.success) throw new Error(`${data.code}: ${data.error}`);
console.log(data);

import os
import requests

res = requests.get(
    "https://api.lurkapi.com/v1/instagram/profile",
    params={
        "username": "nike",
    },
    headers={"x-api-key": os.environ["LURKAPI_KEY"]},
    timeout=60,
)
data = res.json()
if not data["success"]:
    raise RuntimeError(f"{data['code']}: {data['error']}")
print(data)

Example response

A real response from this endpoint, captured from the live API and trimmed to a couple of items. Strings over 96 characters (mostly signed media URLs) are cut short and end in ….

{
  "success": true,
  "credits_remaining": 99,
  "credits_charged": 1,
  "data": {
    "pk": "13460080",
    "id": "17841400602400210",
    "username": "nike",
    "url": "https://www.instagram.com/nike/",
    "full_name": "Nike",
    "biography": "Just Do It.",
    "profile_pic_url": "https://scontent-iad6-1.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.82787-19/551608484_185671…",
    "profile_pic_url_hd": "https://scontent-iad6-1.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.82787-19/551608484_185671…",
    "is_private": false,
    "is_verified": true,
    "follower_count": 291074487,
    "following_count": 266,
    "media_count": null,
    "external_url": "http://empli.fi/nike",
    "bio_links": [
      {
        "url": "http://empli.fi/nike",
        "title": ""
      }
    ],
    "pronouns": [],
    "account_type": 2,
    "category": "",
    "total_clips_count": 1
  }
}

Response fields

Every field of a successful response. [] marks a list: a[].b is the b of each item in a. nullable fields can be null; optional fields can be missing.

Caching and freshness

Responses are cached for up to 10 minutes, so a repeat call within that window can return the same data. It still costs 1 credit.

Errors

Errors return { success: false, error, code, docs } with the HTTP status below. Validation errors, 401/402/429 rejections and 5xx failures are free; not_found is charged (how charging works). All error codes.

Use it in Claude

Once LurkAPI is connected to Claude, this endpoint is the instagram_profile tool. Ask in plain English, for example:

Use LurkAPI's instagram_profile with username "nike" and summarize what you find.

Claude calls instagram_profile with arguments like these, and each call costs 1 credit:

{
  "username": "nike"
}

Tool results skip nulls and empty lists to save tokens.