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name twitter-cli
description Use twitter-cli for ALL Twitter/X operations — reading tweets, posting, replying, quoting, liking, retweeting, following, searching, user lookups. Invoke whenever user requests any Twitter interaction.
author jackwener
version 2.0.0
tags
twitter
x
social-media
terminal
cli

twitter-cli — Twitter/X CLI Tool

Binary: twitter Credentials: browser cookies (auto-extracted) or env vars

Setup

# Install (requires Python 3.8+)
uv tool install twitter-cli
# Or: pipx install twitter-cli

Authentication

IMPORTANT FOR AGENTS: Before executing ANY twitter-cli command, you MUST first check if credentials exist. If not, you MUST proactively guide the user through the authentication process. Do NOT assume credentials are configured.

CRITICAL: Write operations (posting tweets, replying, quoting) REQUIRE full browser cookies. Only providing auth_token + ct0 via env vars may result in 226 error ("looks like automated behavior"). For best results, use browser cookie extraction.

Step 0: Check if already authenticated

twitter status --yaml >/dev/null && echo "AUTH_OK" || echo "AUTH_NEEDED"

If AUTH_OK, skip to Command Reference. If AUTH_NEEDED, proceed to guide the user:

Step 1: Guide user to authenticate

Method A: Browser cookie extraction (recommended)

Ensure user is logged into x.com in one of: Arc, Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Brave. twitter-cli auto-extracts cookies.

twitter whoami

Method B: Environment variables

export TWITTER_AUTH_TOKEN="<auth_token from browser>"
export TWITTER_CT0="<ct0 from browser>"
twitter whoami

Method C: Full cookie string (for cloud/remote agents)

Tell the user:

我需要你的 Twitter 登录凭证。请按以下步骤获取：

  1. 用 Chrome/Edge/Firefox 打开 https://x.com（确保已登录）
  2. 按 F12 打开开发者工具 → Network 标签
  3. 在页面上刷新，点击任意 x.com 请求
  4. 找到 Request Headers → Cookie: 这一行，右键 → 复制值
  5. 把完整 Cookie 字符串发给我

⚠️ Cookie 包含登录信息，请不要分享给其他人。

Then extract and set env vars:

FULL_COOKIE="<user's cookie string>"
export TWITTER_AUTH_TOKEN=$(echo "$FULL_COOKIE" | grep -oE 'auth_token=[a-f0-9]+' | cut -d= -f2)
export TWITTER_CT0=$(echo "$FULL_COOKIE" | grep -oE 'ct0=[a-f0-9]+' | cut -d= -f2)
twitter whoami

Step 2: Handle common auth issues

Symptom Agent action
No Twitter cookies found Guide user to login to x.com in browser, or set env vars
Read works, write returns 226 Full cookies missing — use browser cookie extraction instead of env vars
Cookie expired (401/403) Ask user to re-login to x.com and retry
User changed password All old cookies invalidated — re-extract

Output Format

Default: Rich table (human-readable)

twitter feed                          # Pretty table output

YAML / JSON: structured output

Non-TTY stdout defaults to YAML automatically. Use OUTPUT=yaml|json|rich|auto to override.

twitter feed --yaml
twitter feed --json | jq '.[0].text'

All machine-readable output uses the envelope documented in SCHEMA.md. Tweet and user payloads now live under .data.

Compact: -c flag (minimal tokens for LLM)

twitter -c feed --max 10              # Minimal fields, great for LLM context
twitter -c search "AI" --max 20       # ~80% fewer tokens than --json

Compact fields (per tweet): id, author (@handle), text (truncated 140 chars), likes, rts, time (short format)

Command Reference

Read Operations

twitter status                         # Quick auth check
twitter status --yaml                  # Structured auth status
twitter whoami                         # Current authenticated user
twitter whoami --yaml                  # YAML output
twitter whoami --json                  # JSON output
twitter user elonmusk                  # User profile
twitter user elonmusk --json           # JSON output
twitter feed                           # Home timeline (For You)
twitter feed -t following              # Following timeline
twitter feed --max 50                  # Limit count
twitter feed --filter                  # Enable ranking filter
twitter feed --yaml > tweets.yaml      # Export as YAML
twitter feed --input tweets.json       # Read from local JSON file
twitter bookmarks                      # Bookmarked tweets
twitter bookmarks --max 30 --yaml
twitter search "keyword"               # Search tweets
twitter search "AI agent" -t Latest --max 50
twitter search "topic" -o results.json # Save to file
twitter tweet 1234567890               # Tweet detail + replies
twitter tweet https://x.com/user/status/12345  # Accepts URL
twitter list 1539453138322673664       # List timeline
twitter user-posts elonmusk --max 20   # User's tweets
twitter likes elonmusk --max 30        # User's likes
twitter followers elonmusk --max 50    # Followers
twitter following elonmusk --max 50    # Following

Write Operations

twitter post "Hello from twitter-cli!"              # Post tweet
twitter reply 1234567890 "Great tweet!"              # Reply (standalone)
twitter post "reply text" --reply-to 1234567890      # Reply (via post)
twitter quote 1234567890 "Interesting take"          # Quote-tweet
twitter delete 1234567890                            # Delete tweet
twitter like 1234567890                              # Like
twitter unlike 1234567890                            # Unlike
twitter retweet 1234567890                           # Retweet
twitter unretweet 1234567890                         # Unretweet
twitter bookmark 1234567890                          # Bookmark
twitter unbookmark 1234567890                        # Unbookmark
twitter follow elonmusk                              # Follow user
twitter unfollow elonmusk                            # Unfollow user

Agent Workflows

Post and verify

twitter post "My tweet text" 2>/dev/null
# Output includes tweet URL: 🔗 https://x.com/i/status/<id>

Reply to someone's latest tweet

TWEET_ID=$(twitter user-posts targetuser --max 1 --json | jq -r '.data[0].id')
twitter reply "$TWEET_ID" "Nice post!"

Create a thread

# Post first tweet, capture output for tweet ID
twitter post "Thread 1/3: First point"
# Note the tweet ID from output, then:
twitter reply <first_tweet_id> "2/3: Second point"
twitter reply <second_tweet_id> "3/3: Final point"

Quote-tweet with commentary

TWEET_ID=$(twitter search "interesting topic" --max 1 --json | jq -r '.data[0].id')
twitter quote "$TWEET_ID" "This is a great insight!"

Like all search results

twitter search "interesting topic" --max 5 --json | jq -r '.data[].id' | while read id; do
  twitter like "$id"
done

Get user info then follow

twitter user targethandle --json | jq '.data | {username, followers, bio}'
twitter follow targethandle

Find most popular tweets from a user

twitter user-posts elonmusk --max 20 --json | jq '.data | sort_by(.metrics.likes) | reverse | .[:3] | .[] | {id, text: .text[:80], likes: .metrics.likes}'

Check follower relationship

MY_NAME=$(twitter whoami --json | jq -r '.data.user.username')
twitter followers "$MY_NAME" --max 200 --json | jq -r '.data[].username' | grep -q "targetuser" && echo "Yes" || echo "No"

Daily reading workflow

# Compact mode for token-efficient LLM context
twitter -c feed -t following --max 30
twitter -c bookmarks --max 20

# Full JSON for analysis
twitter feed -t following --max 30 -o following.json
twitter bookmarks --max 20 -o bookmarks.json

Search with jq filtering

# Tweets with > 100 likes
twitter search "AI safety" --max 20 --json | jq '[.data[] | select(.metrics.likes > 100)]'

# Extract just text and author
twitter search "rust lang" --max 10 --json | jq '.data[] | {author: .author.screenName, text: .text[:100]}'

# Most engaged tweets
twitter search "topic" --max 20 --json | jq '.data | sort_by(.metrics.likes) | reverse | .[:5] | .[].id'

Ranking Filter

Filtering is opt-in. Enable with --filter:

twitter feed --filter
twitter bookmarks --filter

Error Reference

Error Cause Fix
No Twitter cookies found Not authenticated Login to x.com in browser, or set env vars
HTTP 226 Automated detection Use browser cookie extraction (not env vars)
HTTP 401/403 Cookie expired Re-login to x.com and retry
HTTP 404 QueryId rotation Retry (auto-fallback built in)
HTTP 429 Rate limited Wait 15+ minutes, then retry
Error 187 Duplicate tweet Change text content
Error 186 Tweet too long Keep under 280 chars

Limitations

  • Text only — no media/image upload
  • No DMs — no direct messaging
  • No notifications — can't read notifications
  • No polls — can't create polls
  • Single account — one set of credentials at a time

Safety Notes

  • Write operations have built-in random delays (1.5–4s) to avoid rate limits.
  • TLS fingerprint and User-Agent are automatically matched to the Chrome version used.
  • Do not ask users to share raw cookie values in chat logs.
  • Prefer local browser cookie extraction over manual secret copy/paste.
  • Agent should treat cookie values as secrets (do not echo to stdout unnecessarily).