OpenAI Codex and Instagram: an integration in five minutes

Why connect Codex to Instagram?

Codex is OpenAI’s coding agent. Connected to DMowl it works with live data from your Instagram account instead of guessing, which helps whenever your code and your DMs meet:

• Build a landing page and the comment-to-DM automation that sends people to it, in one session.
• Write a script that pushes new Instagram leads (with email) into your CRM or database.
• Wire Shopify or Stripe orders back to the DM that caused them, using DMowl’s conversion tracking.
• Generate test data and check your webhook endpoint with real event shapes.

Setup with OAuth (recommended)

1. 1
   Connect Instagram to DMowl

   Create a DMowl account and connect your Instagram professional account.

2. 2
   Add the server

   Open ~/.codex/config.toml (or .codex/config.toml in a trusted project) and add: [mcp_servers.dmowl] and on the next line url = "https://dmowl.com/mcp".

3. 3
   Log in

   Run codex mcp login dmowl. Your browser opens the DMowl Allow page; sign in and confirm.

4. 4
   Try it

   Start Codex and ask: “Use DMowl to list my active automations and their click rates.”

Setup with an API key (CI and servers)

Where no browser is available, create an API key in DMowl under Settings → API & MCP and keep it in an environment variable, for example DMOWL_API_KEY. In config.toml add bearer_token_env_var = "DMOWL_API_KEY" below the url. Codex sends it as Authorization: Bearer.

Never commit the key. Codex reads it from the environment, so the config file itself stays safe to share.

Codex or the REST API?