twitter-cli

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	0.8.0
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

# Upgrade to latest (recommended to avoid API errors)
uv tool upgrade twitter-cli
# Or: pipx upgrade 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. All Chrome profiles are scanned automatically. To specify a profile: TWITTER_CHROME_PROFILE="Profile 2" twitter feed. To prioritize a specific browser: TWITTER_BROWSER=chrome twitter feed (supported: arc, chrome, edge, firefox, brave).

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.

Full text: --full-text flag (rich tables only)

Use --full-text when the user wants complete post bodies in terminal tables. It affects rich table list views such as feed, bookmarks, search, user-posts, likes, list, and reply tables in tweet. It does not change --json, --yaml, or -c compact output.

twitter feed --full-text
twitter search "AI agent" --full-text
twitter user-posts elonmusk --max 20 --full-text
twitter tweet 1234567890 --full-text

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 --full-text               # Show full post body in table
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 --full-text          # Full text in bookmarks table
twitter bookmarks --max 30 --yaml
twitter search "keyword"               # Search tweets
twitter search "AI agent" -t Latest --max 50
twitter search "AI agent" --full-text  # Full text in search results
twitter search "topic" -o results.json # Save to file
twitter tweet 1234567890               # Tweet detail + replies
twitter tweet 1234567890 --full-text   # Full text in reply table
twitter tweet https://x.com/user/status/12345  # Accepts URL
twitter show 2                         # Open tweet #2 from last feed/search list
twitter show 2 --full-text             # Full text in reply table
twitter show 2 --json                  # Structured output
twitter list 1539453138322673664       
twitter list 1539453138322673664 --full-text
twitter user-posts elonmusk --max 20   
twitter user-posts elonmusk --full-text
twitter likes elonmusk --max 30        
twitter likes elonmusk --full-text
twitter followers elonmusk --max 50    
twitter following elonmusk --max 50    

Write Operations

twitter post "Hello from twitter-cli!"              # Post tweet
twitter post "Hello!" --image photo.jpg              # Post with image
twitter post "Gallery" -i a.png -i b.jpg             # Up to 4 images
twitter reply 1234567890 "Great tweet!"              # Reply (standalone)
twitter reply 1234567890 "Nice!" -i pic.png          # Reply with image
twitter post "reply text" --reply-to 1234567890      # Reply (via post)
twitter quote 1234567890 "Interesting take"          # Quote-tweet
twitter quote 1234567890 "Look" -i chart.png         # Quote with image
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

Image upload notes:

• Supported formats: JPEG, PNG, GIF, WebP
• Max file size: 5 MB per image
• Max 4 images per tweet
• Use --image / -i (repeatable)

Agent Workflows

Post and verify

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

Post with images

# Single image
twitter post "Check this out!" --image /path/to/photo.jpg

# Multiple images
twitter post "Photo gallery" -i img1.png -i img2.jpg -i img3.webp

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

# Rich table with complete post bodies
twitter feed -t following --max 20 --full-text
twitter search "AI agent" --max 20 --full-text

# 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

• Images only — video/GIF animation upload not yet supported (image upload supports JPEG/PNG/GIF/WebP)
• 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
• Likes are private — Twitter/X made all likes private since June 2024. twitter likes only works for your own account

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).