Replace duplicated _extract_core_subject() in bird_x, reddit, youtube_yt,
tiktok, instagram, bluesky, and scrapecreators_x with thin wrappers that
delegate to query.extract_core_subject() with platform-specific noise sets.
Each module preserves its current behavior exactly:
- bird_x: max_words=5, strip_suffixes=True, full noise set
- youtube_yt: keeps tips/tricks/tutorial/guide/review (content types)
- reddit: preserves original smaller noise set
- tiktok/instagram: same small noise set
- bluesky/scrapecreators_x: minimal noise set
Existing tests pass without modification since _extract_core_subject()
still exists as a callable on each module.
Previously tiktok.py and instagram.py returned an error when the
requests library was not installed. Reddit already had an http.get()
fallback using stdlib urllib. Apply the same pattern so all three
ScrapeCreators modules work without requests installed.
- Instagram: migrate /v1/ to /v2/ ScrapeCreators endpoint (v1 deprecated Feb 2026)
- OpenAI: switch fallback chain to [gpt-5-mini, gpt-4.1-mini, gpt-4.1] (8x cheaper,
gpt-5-mini is the first mini model supporting web_search with filters.allowed_domains)
- xAI: use explicit grok-4-1-fast-non-reasoning (bare name aliases to reasoning variant)
- xAI: pass from_date/to_date natively to x_search tool config instead of prompt-only
- Polymarket: correct rate limit comment (15K/10s, not 350/10s)
Add Instagram Reels as the 8th research source via ScrapeCreators API.
One API key (SCRAPECREATORS_API_KEY) now covers both TikTok and Instagram.
- Add scripts/lib/instagram.py: keyword search, transcript extraction,
relevance scoring, engagement metrics (views, likes, comments)
- Add InstagramItem to schema, normalization, scoring, dedup, rendering
- Add Instagram to orchestrator pipeline, watchlist, and UI spinners
- Update SKILL.md: stats template, citation priority, item format,
URL-to-name extraction rules, anti-Sources instruction
- Update README and CHANGELOG for v2.8
- Fix: Instagram/TikTok not running in --search= web-only path
- Fix: web stats line showing full URLs instead of domain names
- Replace APIFY_API_TOKEN with SCRAPECREATORS_API_KEY throughout
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Jeffrey Sperling