n8n Workflow: Auto Create Instagram Carousels from Articles

Auto-create Instagram carousels (and stories) from your articles—using n8n, Claude, OpenAI, Cloudinary, Slack approval, and Meta Graph API

This n8n workflow turns a published article URL plus a selected market into a ready-to-post Instagram carousel (with caption) and an Instagram story, then publishes to Instagram and Facebook—after getting Slack approval.

What this workflow does

• Collect input: An editor submits an n8n form with the article URL and target market.
• Load brand settings & check history: The workflow pulls market-specific brand settings, checks the carousel_posts data table for prior posts of the same article, and confirms generation has started.
• Extract article content: It fetches the article HTML, extracts the title, body text, and a hero image URL.
• Generate carousel content: Anthropic Claude drafts three slide texts, three image prompts, and a caption.
• Validate before creating paid images: It validates generated text and prompts (including blocking Title Case headlines and unsafe colour cues in warning-related prompts) before generating any paid images.
• Create assets: The workflow downloads the hero image, uses OpenAI Images to generate slide and story images, uploads assets to Cloudinary, and composes four carousel slides plus a story using Cloudinary transformations.
• Slack review gate: It bakes transformed images into flat Cloudinary assets, posts a preview to Slack, and waits up to three hours for approval or a “More options” decision.
• Publish: If approved (and accounts are configured), it publishes the carousel to Instagram, posts to Facebook Page, publishes an Instagram story, and logs post IDs/metadata.

Use cases

• Editorial teams converting blog articles into branded Instagram carousels with a human-in-the-loop approval via Slack.
• SaaS operators automating social repurposing by market (localized brand settings) while avoiding duplicate carousel posts.
• Automation engineers building scalable n8n workflows that combine LLM copy generation and image creation with Cloudinary publishing pipelines.

Technical details

• n8n nodes: if, code, form, wait, slack, data table
• LLMs & images: Anthropic Claude (carousel copy + prompts), OpenAI Images (generated visuals)
• Asset pipeline: Cloudinary (uploads, transformations, baked final assets)
• Publishing: Meta Graph API (Instagram carousel + Instagram story + Facebook Page post)