Zernio Social Posting

Zernio + Cloudinary Social Media Posting

Post to 16 platforms via a single API: Zernio handles publishing, Cloudinary hosts + optimizes the media. Free tier covers 1-2 accounts on Zernio (no credit card) and 25 credits/month on Cloudinary.

When to use this skill

• User wants to post an image/video to Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, X, etc.
• User has a media URL and wants to publish to a social platform
• User wants to schedule a post or cross-post to multiple platforms
• User wants Story (24h ephemeral) or Reel (vertical video) support
• User already has a Zernio account and an Instagram Business/Creator account

User preference: never auto-generate images

This user (Fajri) always supplies the source image themselves — usually via WhatsApp or Discord attachment. The pipeline is:

1. User sends image + caption
2. Save to /tmp/ (or wherever the platform's bridge drops it)
3. Run post_to_ig.py /tmp/ ""
4. Reply with the live IG URL

Do NOT generate images from a prompt for this user unless they explicitly ask. Pair with the image-gen-9router skill only when they request text-to-image. The default request "post this to IG" means "I have an image, please upload and post it" — not "make me an image and post it."

The full text-to-image-then-post flow (e.g. "research Linux, generate an infographic, post it") is a separate, opt-in workflow that combines this skill with image-gen-9router.

What this skill assumes

• Zernio account at https://zernio.com/signup (no CC for first 1-2 accounts)
• At least one social account connected via Zernio OAuth
• Instagram account must be Business or Creator (Personal accounts cannot use Graph API)
• Cloudinary account for media CDN (free tier: 25 credits/month)
• Env vars in ~/.hermes/.env:
• ZERNIO_API_KEY=sk_...
• CLOUDINARY_CLOUD_NAME=...
• CLOUDINARY_API_KEY=...
• CLOUDINARY_API_SECRET=...
• Optional: ZERNIO_IG_ACCOUNT_ID=... (default for single-account flow)

The pipeline

Local file or URL
  ↓
Cloudinary upload (auto resource_type=image|video)
  ↓
Build URL with slash-chained transforms (NEVER commas — see pitfall below)
  ↓
POST to Zernio /v1/posts with bearer auth
  ↓
Zernio publishes to social platform(s)
  ↓
Live URL returned

Slash-chained Cloudinary URLs (the working pattern)

Cloudinary transform syntax has two flavors. Zernio's URL parser only accepts the slash-chained form. See references/cloudinary-comma-bug.md for the full transcript of the failure.

Broken (commas mis-parsed as multi-URL separator):

https://res.cloudinary.com/X/image/upload/w_1080,h_1080,c_fill,q_auto,f_auto/v123/id.jpg
              ↑ Zernio reads "h_1080" as second URL → 400 Invalid media URL

Works (slash-chained, equivalent transform):

https://res.cloudinary.com/X/image/upload/w_1080/h_1080/c_fill/q_auto/f_auto/v123/id.jpg

For video:

https://res.cloudinary.com/X/video/upload/q_auto/v123/id.mp4

Zernio content types (Instagram)

| Type | Zernio field | Notes | |---|---|---| | Feed post | omit contentType | default; image, video, carousel | | Story | contentType: "story" | 24h ephemeral; captions not shown | | Reel | contentType: "reel" | vertical 9:16 video, ≤90s; auto-applied to single video without the field |

{
  "content": "caption with #hashtags",
  "mediaItems": [{"type": "image", "url": ""}],
  "platforms": [{
    "platform": "instagram",
    "accountId": "",
    "platformSpecificData": {"contentType": "story"}
  }],
  "publishNow": true
}

Available templates

• templates/post_to_ig.py — full one-shot post: upload to Cloudinary, post via Zernio, wait for live URL, print result. Supports feed/story/reel. Auto-loads ~/.hermes/.env.
• templates/cloudinary_helper.py — Cloudinary SDK wrapper: upload + slash-chained IG URL + usage stats. Auto-loads ~/.hermes/.env.

Usage

python3 templates/post_to_ig.py photo.jpg "caption #tags"
python3 templates/post_to_ig.py photo.jpg "caption" --content-type story
python3 templates/post_to_ig.py video.mp4 "caption" --content-type reel

Pitfalls

• Never use commas in Cloudinary transform URLs when posting via Zernio. Always slash-chain. See references/cloudinary-comma-bug.md.
• IG account must be Business or Creator. Personal accounts will fail at OAuth with no helpful error. Switch in IG app: Settings → Account type and tools → Switch to professional account.
• Zernio 401 with Invalid API key usually means the bearer token is the wrong env var. zernio auth:set --key writes to ~/.config/zernio/auth.json; the Python script reads from ZERNIO_API_KEY env var (or auto-loads from ~/.hermes/.env).
• IG token lasts 60 days; Zernio will ask for reconnect. Watch for token_expired errors.
• n (count) field is provider-dependent. Some providers (gemini nano-banana, huggingface) ignore it.
• Story captions are NOT shown on Instagram (Graph API limit, not Zernio).
• Reel shareToFeed — default false. Set true in platformSpecificData to also appear in main feed.
• First-call latency — Zernio returns status: publishing then polls to published. The Python template polls /v1/posts/{id} for up to 60s for live URL.

Reference docs

• references/cloudinary-comma-bug.md — full transcript of the URL parser failure
• references/env-loader-pattern.md — Python pattern for auto-loading ~/.hermes/.env

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: fajrisilmi12-cyber
• Source: fajrisilmi12-cyber/hermes-socmed-function
• License: MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.