Your niche trends dashboard: Claude reads your niche for you
Hey, it's Cindy 🌱 This is the whole system from the reel. Every time you run it, Claude rebuilds a dashboard of the latest reels in your niche.
btw the waitlist for AI System Club is now open! If you're keen on using AI to automate your content, video editing, job search, business or build AI agents, feel free to sign up (only if you want to hehe). Ps. the waitlist gets first dibs:)
🐍 scrape.py, the scraper: pulls the reels AND transcripts in one pass (the only code you run)
🧠 ANALYZE.md, the playbook Claude follows to score and break down every reel against YOUR niche
🎨 DASHBOARD-SPEC.md, the spec Claude follows to build your dashboard.html (mine is warm cream and orange, make yours yours)
📋 competitor-accounts.md, your niche accounts template
the setup
The 5-minute setup
💻 Open the folder. Unzip the kit into a folder, then open that folder in Claude Code (or the Code tab in Claude Desktop: open Claude Desktop, click Code, choose Local, Select folder)
💬 Brief Claude. Say: "Read 00-README.md and set this competitor dashboard up for me. My niche is [what you make content about, and for whom]. The creators in my niche are [3 to 7 Instagram handles]. Walk me through getting the one API key, then do the rest yourself."
🔑 Get the one key. Claude will point you to the one key you need: sign up at apify.com, go to Settings, then Integrations, copy your API token. Claude stores it in a local .env file (never in your shell profile, never pasted into chats)
▶️ Let it run. Claude runs the scraper, scores the batch, and builds your dashboard. Open dashboard.html in your browser
why it's cheap
Why one key (and not three tools)
Most versions of this system floating around chain a scraper + a separate transcription API + a separate research tool. You don't need them:
🧲 Apify's official Instagram reel scraper has a built-in transcript add-on, so scraping and transcription happen in ONE paid pass (fractions of a cent per reel, about 5 cents per minute of audio)
🧠 Claude does the scoring, the research on any tools mentioned, and the dashboard build in your normal session, free
🎬 No videos are ever downloaded, so there is nothing to store or clean up
At 3 reels per account, a handful of accounts, a couple of runs a week, that lands around $3 a month, and Apify's free monthly credit covers most of it while you test.
the rhythm
The weekly rhythm
☕️ Scrape. Run python3 scrape.py (or ask Claude to)
🧮 Score. Say "process the latest batch in staging/ following ANALYZE.md". Claude scores every reel 1 to 10 against your niche, keeps only the 7+, and writes one research note per keeper
📊 Rebuild. Say "rebuild the dashboard following DASHBOARD-SPEC.md", then refresh your browser
The scraper keeps a ledger of everything it has seen, so you only ever pay for new reels. And the part that actually changes your content: every keeper gets tagged by hook style (problem-promise, contrarian-claim, list-tease, demo-first, story-frame, data-shock, identity-call), so you stop watching reels and start watching patterns.
what to watch
Play fair
🔍 This is research signal, not a content-theft kit. Study hooks, structures, and topics. Never repost anyone's reels or transcripts, and when a specific creator inspires your version, credit them in the caption (exactly what I did with this one)
🔒 Nothing here logs into Instagram or touches your own account. It reads public data through Apify's scraper, the same arrangement every analytics tool uses
🌱 Keep the volume reasonable. The defaults (3 reels per account) are plenty
go further
Make it yours
Once it runs, the fun upgrades are one prompt each:
✨ steal-this-angle cards
Add a "steal this angle" section to the dashboard: for every keeper, show the angle suggestion from its note as a swipeable idea card.
📈 me vs the niche
Track my own account too, and add a "me vs the niche" tab comparing my hook styles to what's winning.
🚀 the outlier flag
Add an outlier flag: highlight any reel doing 4x or more that account's median views, those are the proven ideas.