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

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       # List timeline
twitter list 1539453138322673664 --full-text
twitter user-posts elonmusk --max 20   # User's tweets
twitter user-posts elonmusk --full-text
twitter likes elonmusk --max 30        # User's likes (own only, see note)
twitter likes elonmusk --full-text
twitter followers elonmusk --max 50    # Followers
twitter following elonmusk --max 50    # Following

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

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).