How to Integrate Lovable with Later

Later's API access is handled through their platform rather than a traditional developer portal. Navigate to app.later.com and go to Settings → API or check later.com/developers for the current API access flow — Later's developer program has evolved and the current access path may differ from older documentation. Later's API uses OAuth2 for authentication. Contact Later's support team or navigate to their developer documentation at developers.later.com to register your application and obtain a Client ID and Client Secret. Later may require a paid plan (Growth or above) to enable API access — verify this with their current pricing when setting up. To generate an access token, use Later's OAuth2 authorization code flow. The authorization URL follows the standard pattern with your client ID, redirect URI, and requested scopes. Later's scopes include read for reading profile and post data, and write for scheduling and managing content. For development and testing, Later may provide an API token directly in the app settings without requiring the full OAuth flow. Check Settings → Integrations or Settings → API in your Later account — some plan tiers provide a direct API token that can be used for development. Store your Later API credentials before proceeding to the next step. You will need either a direct API token or the client credentials for the OAuth2 flow.

Open your Lovable project and navigate to Cloud → Secrets via the '+' icon next to Preview. Add the following secrets based on the credential type you obtained: For direct API token: - Name: LATER_API_TOKEN — Value: your Later API token For OAuth2 client credentials: - Name: LATER_ACCESS_TOKEN — Value: your OAuth2 access token - Name: LATER_REFRESH_TOKEN — Value: your refresh token - Name: LATER_CLIENT_ID — Value: your Later application Client ID - Name: LATER_CLIENT_SECRET — Value: your Later application Client Secret Also add: - Name: LATER_PROFILE_ID — Value: your Later social profile ID (found in the Later URL when viewing a profile, or from the profiles API endpoint) Later credentials authorize publishing content to connected social accounts — Instagram and TikTok posts going out under your brand. Store them in Cloud → Secrets with the same care as any credential that controls public brand communications.

Create a Supabase Edge Function that proxies Later API calls. Later's API base URL is https://api.later.com/v1/ and all requests use the Authorization: Bearer {token} header. The function handles four core actions: posts (list scheduled posts for a profile), post_analytics (fetch performance data for published posts), media (list the media library), and schedule_post (create a new scheduled post). Later's API uses ISO 8601 timestamps for schedule times. Posts require a media_id (from an existing Later media item), the profile_id to post to, caption text, and a scheduled_at time. The media must be uploaded to Later's library first before it can be referenced in a scheduled post.

1// supabase/functions/later-api/index.ts
2const LATER_BASE = 'https://api.later.com/v1';
3
4Deno.serve(async (req) => {
5  if (req.method === 'OPTIONS') {
6    return new Response(null, {
7      headers: {
8        'Access-Control-Allow-Origin': '*',
9        'Access-Control-Allow-Methods': 'POST, OPTIONS',
10        'Access-Control-Allow-Headers': 'Content-Type, Authorization',
11      },
12    });
13  }
14
15  const apiToken = Deno.env.get('LATER_API_TOKEN') || Deno.env.get('LATER_ACCESS_TOKEN');
16  const profileId = Deno.env.get('LATER_PROFILE_ID');
17
18  if (!apiToken) {
19    return new Response(JSON.stringify({ error: 'Later API token not configured' }), {
20      status: 500,
21      headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/json', 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin': '*' },
22    });
23  }
24
25  const headers = { 'Authorization': `Bearer ${apiToken}`, 'Content-Type': 'application/json' };
26  const { action, params } = await req.json();
27
28  let url: string;
29  let fetchOptions: RequestInit;
30  const pId = params?.profile_id || profileId;
31
32  if (action === 'posts') {
33    url = `${LATER_BASE}/posts?profile_id=${pId}&status=${params?.status || 'scheduled'}&limit=50`;
34    fetchOptions = { method: 'GET', headers };
35  } else if (action === 'media') {
36    url = `${LATER_BASE}/media?profile_id=${pId}&limit=50`;
37    if (params?.page_token) url += `&page_token=${params.page_token}`;
38    fetchOptions = { method: 'GET', headers };
39  } else if (action === 'schedule_post') {
40    url = `${LATER_BASE}/posts`;
41    fetchOptions = {
42      method: 'POST',
43      headers,
44      body: JSON.stringify({
45        profile_id: pId,
46        media_ids: params.media_ids,
47        caption: params.caption,
48        scheduled_at: params.scheduled_at,
49      }),
50    };
51  } else if (action === 'profiles') {
52    url = `${LATER_BASE}/profiles`;
53    fetchOptions = { method: 'GET', headers };
54  } else if (action === 'analytics') {
55    const q = new URLSearchParams({
56      profile_id: pId!,
57      start_date: params.start_date,
58      end_date: params.end_date,
59    });
60    url = `${LATER_BASE}/post_analytics?${q}`;
61    fetchOptions = { method: 'GET', headers };
62  } else {
63    return new Response(JSON.stringify({ error: 'Invalid action' }), {
64      status: 400,
65      headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/json', 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin': '*' },
66    });
67  }
68
69  const response = await fetch(url, fetchOptions);
70  const data = await response.json();
71
72  return new Response(JSON.stringify(data), {
73    status: response.ok ? 200 : response.status,
74    headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/json', 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin': '*' },
75  });
76});

Use Lovable's chat to build the visual content calendar. The calendar displays scheduled posts from Later's API — each post shows its thumbnail image, caption preview, scheduled date and time, and network icon. The visual grid preview shows posts in a 3-column layout that mirrors how they will appear on an Instagram feed, helping content managers see the overall aesthetic flow. For the Linkin.bio section, fetch published posts that have links attached and show their click analytics. Display each post as a card with the image thumbnail, the linked URL, and click count. Add an edit button that opens a form to update or add a URL. For the analytics view, Later provides per-post metrics: likes, comments, saves, reach, and impressions for Instagram; views, likes, comments, and shares for TikTok. Show a summary table of recent posts sorted by engagement rate, and a trend chart for follower growth and average engagement over time. For bulk content workflows where a design team creates many images in batch and needs to upload them to Later's library, build an upload queue component: users select multiple images from Supabase Storage, the component calls Later's media upload endpoint for each one sequentially, and shows a progress indicator for the batch upload. For agencies managing many client accounts or large-scale Instagram content programs, RapidDev's team can help design the multi-profile architecture and automated content pipeline.