Single JavaScript File Node/Express/Instagram Authentication (OAuth) And Get User Photos

Get Ready

Register your Instagram app in their developer portal and obtain client id and client secret keys. To do that, follow the steps below:

• Go to IG Developer page: https://www.instagram.com/developer/
• Click “Register your application” button (if you are not logged in, you will be asked to log in on this step)
• Fill all fields. The only field you need to pay attention to is the “valid redirect URLs”. This is where your app is publicly hosted. Below, we will create a URL on the application to capture Instagram authentication after the user goes to the Instagram page for permission dialog, then comes back to this URL. It’ll be something like https://yoursite.com/instagram/callback
• Once you register the app, the page will display client id and secret. Keep this ready on the next steps.

Code it up

Let’s set up the plain node.js and express the application.

First, install the required packages:

npm install --save express path instagram-node cookie-parser

index.js (or server.js)

Deploy and run

Either locally or after you place it on your server, run:

node index.js

Tip 1: use “forever” on your server to run this application permanently.

Tip 2: For experimental purposes, you can run this app on your local and have a tunneling tool like “ngrok” to open your local port to the public with a quick domain assignment. Ngrok will provide a URL (random subdomain on their domain), you have to update the IG developer app’s settings to add this domain as a valid redirect URL, otherwise, after this app redirects user for authentication to Instagram, it will give an error.

Get the real thing

The code above in this article was a quick and dirty version. I put the little bit more proper express application version on Github. It uses pug for its views and has proper layout/content block separation as well.

mfyz/express-passport-instagram-example

This article is first published on my blog: https://mfyz.com/single-javascript-file-node-express-instagram-authentication-oauth-and-get-user-photos/