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](#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：

• 用 Chrome/Edge/Firefox 打开 https://x.com（确保已登录）

• 按 F12 打开开发者工具 → Network 标签

• 在页面上刷新，点击任意 x.com 请求

• 找到 Request Headers → Cookie: 这一行，右键 → 复制值

• 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       # List timeline

twitter list 1539453138322673664 --cursor "<next-cursor>"

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

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).