twitter-cli 0.8.5

A CLI for Twitter/X — feed, bookmarks, and user timeline in terminal

twitter-cli

A terminal-first CLI for Twitter/X: read timelines, bookmarks, and user profiles without API keys.

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English | 中文

English

Features

Read:

• Timeline: fetch for-you and following feeds
• Bookmarks: list saved tweets from your account
• Search: find tweets by keyword with Top/Latest/Photos/Videos tabs
• Tweet detail: view a tweet and its replies; use show <N> to open tweet #N from the last list output
• Article: fetch a Twitter Article and export it as Markdown
• List timeline: fetch tweets from a Twitter List
• User lookup: fetch user profile, tweets, likes, followers, and following
• --full-text: disable tweet text truncation in rich table output
• Structured output: export any data as YAML or JSON for scripting and AI agent integration
• Optional scoring filter: rank tweets by engagement weights
• Structured output contract: SCHEMA.md

AI Agent Tip: Prefer --yaml for structured output unless a strict JSON parser is required. Non-TTY stdout defaults to YAML automatically. Use --max to limit results.

Write:

• Post: create new tweets and replies, with optional image attachments (up to 4)
• Quote: quote-tweet with optional images
• Delete: remove your own tweets
• Like / Unlike: manage tweet likes
• Retweet / Unretweet: manage retweets
• Bookmark: bookmark/unbookmark (favorite/unfavorite kept as compatibility aliases)
• Write commands also support explicit --json / --yaml output now

Auth & Anti-Detection:

• Cookie auth: use browser cookies or environment variables
• Full cookie forwarding: extracts ALL browser cookies for richer browser context
• TLS fingerprint impersonation: curl_cffi with dynamic Chrome version matching
• x-client-transaction-id header generation
• Request timing jitter to avoid pattern detection
• Write operation delays (1.5–4s random) to mitigate rate limits
• Proxy support via TWITTER_PROXY environment variable

Installation

# Recommended: uv tool (fast, isolated)
uv tool install twitter-cli

# Alternative: pipx
pipx install twitter-cli

Upgrade to the latest version:

uv tool upgrade twitter-cli
# Or: pipx upgrade twitter-cli

Tip: Upgrade regularly to avoid unexpected errors from outdated API handling.

Install from source:

git clone [e-mail]:jackwener/twitter-cli.git
cd twitter-cli
uv sync

Quick Start

# Fetch home timeline (For You)
twitter feed

# Fetch Following timeline
twitter feed -t following

# Enable ranking filter explicitly
twitter feed --filter

Usage

# Feed
twitter feed --max 50
twitter feed --full-text
twitter feed --output tweets.json
twitter feed --input tweets.json
twitter feed --json                    # Structured stdout for scripts/agents

# Bookmarks
twitter bookmarks
twitter bookmarks --full-text
twitter bookmarks --max 30 --yaml

# Search
twitter search "Claude Code"
twitter search "AI agent" -t Latest --max 50
twitter search "AI agent" --full-text
twitter search "机器学习" --yaml
twitter search "python" --from elonmusk --lang en --since 2026-01-01
twitter search --from bbc --exclude retweets --has links
twitter search "topic" -o results.json         # Save to file
twitter search "trending" --filter              # Apply ranking filter

# Tweet detail (view tweet + replies)
twitter tweet 1234567890
twitter tweet 1234567890 --full-text
twitter tweet https://x.com/user/status/1234567890

# Open tweet by index from last list output
twitter show 2                         # Open tweet #2 from last feed/search
twitter show 2 --full-text             # Full text in reply table
twitter show 2 --json                  # Structured output

# Twitter Article
twitter article 1234567890
twitter article https://x.com/user/article/1234567890 --json
twitter article 1234567890 --markdown
twitter article 1234567890 --output article.md

# List timeline
twitter list 1539453138322673664
twitter list 1539453138322673664 --full-text

# User
twitter user elonmusk
twitter user-posts elonmusk --max 20
twitter user-posts elonmusk --full-text
twitter user-posts elonmusk -o tweets.json
twitter likes elonmusk --max 30          # ⚠️ own likes only (private since Jun 2024)
twitter likes elonmusk --full-text
twitter likes elonmusk -o likes.json
twitter followers elonmusk --max 50
twitter following elonmusk --max 50

# Write operations
twitter post "Hello from twitter-cli!"
twitter post "Hello!" --image photo.jpg            # Post with image
twitter post "Gallery" -i a.png -i b.jpg -i c.webp  # Up to 4 images
twitter post "reply text" --reply-to 1234567890
twitter reply 1234567890 "Nice!" -i screenshot.png  # Reply with image
twitter quote 1234567890 "Look" -i chart.png        # Quote with image
twitter post "Hello from twitter-cli!" --json
twitter delete 1234567890
twitter like 1234567890
twitter like 1234567890 --yaml
twitter unlike 1234567890
twitter retweet 1234567890
twitter unretweet 1234567890
twitter bookmark 1234567890
twitter unbookmark 1234567890
twitter follow elonmusk --json

Authentication

twitter-cli uses this auth priority:

1. Environment variables: TWITTER_AUTH_TOKEN + TWITTER_CT0
2. Browser cookies (recommended): auto-extract from Arc/Chrome/Edge/Firefox/Brave

Browser extraction is recommended — it forwards ALL Twitter cookies (not just auth_token + ct0) and aligns request headers with your local runtime, which is closer to normal browser traffic than minimal cookie auth.

Chrome multi-profile: All Chrome profiles are scanned automatically. To specify a profile:

TWITTER_CHROME_PROFILE="Profile 2" twitter feed

Browser priority: If you have multiple browsers, set TWITTER_BROWSER to try a specific browser first:

TWITTER_BROWSER=chrome twitter feed    # Supported: arc, chrome, edge, firefox, brave

After loading cookies, the CLI performs lightweight verification. Commands that require account access fail fast on clear auth errors (401/403).

Proxy Support

Set TWITTER_PROXY to route all requests through a proxy:

# HTTP proxy
export TWITTER_PROXY=http://127.0.0.1:7890

# SOCKS5 proxy
export TWITTER_PROXY=socks5://127.0.0.1:1080

Using a proxy can help reduce IP-based rate limiting risks.

Configuration

Create config.yaml in your working directory:

fetch:
  count: 50

filter:
  mode: "topN"          # "topN" | "score" | "all"
  topN: 20
  minScore: 50
  lang: []
  excludeRetweets: false
  weights:
    likes: 1.0
    retweets: 3.0
    replies: 2.0
    bookmarks: 5.0
    views_log: 0.5

rateLimit:
  requestDelay: 2.5     # base delay between requests (randomized ×0.7–1.5)
  maxRetries: 3          # retry count on rate limit (429)
  retryBaseDelay: 5.0    # base delay for exponential backoff
  maxCount: 200          # hard cap on fetched items

Fetch behavior:

• fetch.count is the default item count for read commands when --max is omitted
• Rich table output truncates long tweet text by default; use --full-text to show full body text in list views

Filter behavior:

• Default behavior: no ranking filter unless --filter is passed
• With --filter: tweets are scored/sorted using config.filter

Scoring formula:

score = likes_w * likes
      + retweets_w * retweets
      + replies_w * replies
      + bookmarks_w * bookmarks
      + views_log_w * log10(max(views, 1))

Mode behavior:

• mode: "topN" keeps the highest topN tweets by score
• mode: "score" keeps tweets where score >= minScore
• mode: "all" returns all tweets after sorting by score

Best Practices (Avoiding Bans)

• Use a proxy — set TWITTER_PROXY to avoid direct IP exposure
• Keep request volumes low — use --max 20 instead of --max 500
• Don't run too frequently — each startup fetches x.com to initialize anti-detection headers
• Use browser cookie extraction — provides full cookie fingerprint
• Avoid datacenter IPs — residential proxies are much safer

Output Modes

• Use the default rich table for interactive reading
• Use --full-text when reading long posts in terminal tables
• Use --yaml or --json for scripts and agent pipelines
• Use -c / --compact when token efficiency matters more than completeness

Troubleshooting

• No Twitter cookies found

  • Ensure you are logged in to x.com in a supported browser (Arc/Chrome/Edge/Firefox/Brave).
  • Or set TWITTER_AUTH_TOKEN and TWITTER_CT0 manually.
  • Run with -v to see browser extraction diagnostics.

• Cookie expired or invalid (HTTP 401/403)

  • Re-login to x.com and retry.

• Unable to get key for cookie decryption (macOS Keychain)

  • SSH sessions: Keychain is locked by default over SSH. Run:

    security unlock-keychain ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain-db
    

  • Local terminal: Open Keychain Access → search for "<Browser> Safe Storage" → Access Control → add your Terminal app → Save Changes.
  • Or click "Always Allow" when the Keychain authorization popup appears.

• Twitter API error 404

  • This can happen when upstream GraphQL query IDs rotate.
  • Retry the command; the client attempts a live queryId fallback.

• Invalid tweet JSON file

  • Regenerate input using twitter feed --json > tweets.json.

• Windows: no output captured by pipe/subprocess (AI agent integration)

  • This is a ConPTY issue, not a twitter-cli bug. Windows Terminal's ConPTY pseudo-terminal can intercept pipe output from commands with network latency.
  • Fix: Use Git Bash as your terminal shell and set "windowsEnableConpty": false in your terminal settings.
  • If disabling ConPTY with PowerShell, emoji output may fail with UnicodeEncodeError: 'gbk'. Git Bash handles UTF-8 natively.
  • Standard subprocess.run(capture_output=True) and file redirection (> file 2>&1) work correctly regardless of ConPTY.

Structured error codes commonly include not_authenticated, not_found, invalid_input, rate_limited, and api_error.

Development

# Install dev dependencies
uv sync --extra dev

# Lint + tests
uv run ruff check .
uv run pytest -q

Current CI validates the project on Python 3.8, 3.10, and 3.12.

Project Structure

twitter_cli/
├── __init__.py
├── cli.py
├── client.py
├── graphql.py       # GraphQL query IDs, URL building, JS bundle scanning
├── parser.py        # Tweet, User, Media parsing logic
├── auth.py
├── config.py
├── constants.py
├── exceptions.py
├── filter.py
├── formatter.py
├── output.py
├── serialization.py
└── models.py

Use as AI Agent Skill

twitter-cli ships with a SKILL.md so AI agents can execute common X/Twitter workflows.

Skills CLI (Recommended)

npx skills add jackwener/twitter-cli

Flag	Description
-g	Install globally (user-level, shared across projects)
-a claude-code	Target a specific agent
-y	Non-interactive mode

Manual Install

mkdir -p .agents/skills
git clone [e-mail]:jackwener/twitter-cli.git .agents/skills/twitter-cli

OpenClaw / ClawHub (Deprecated)

⚠️ ClawHub install method is deprecated and no longer supported. Use Skills CLI or Manual Install above.

中文

功能概览

读取:

• 时间线读取：支持 for-you 和 following
• 收藏读取：查看账号书签推文
• 搜索：按关键词搜索推文，支持 Top/Latest/Photos/Videos
• 推文详情：查看推文及其回复；用 show <N> 可直接打开上次列表里的第 N 条推文
• 文章读取：获取 Twitter 长文，并导出为 Markdown
• 列表时间线：获取 Twitter List 的推文
• 用户查询：查看用户资料、推文、点赞、粉丝和关注
• --full-text：在 rich table 输出里关闭推文正文截断
• 结构化输出：支持 YAML 和 JSON，便于脚本处理和 AI agent 集成

AI Agent 提示： 需要结构化输出时优先使用 --yaml，除非下游必须是 JSON。stdout 不是 TTY 时默认输出 YAML。用 --max 控制返回数量。

写入:

• 发推：发布新推文和回复，支持附带图片（最多 4 张，支持 JPEG/PNG/GIF/WebP）
• 引用推文：带评论的转发，也支持附带图片
• 删除：删除自己的推文
• 点赞 / 取消点赞
• 转推 / 取消转推
• 书签 / 取消书签：bookmark/unbookmark（保留 favorite/unfavorite 兼容别名）
• 写操作现在也显式支持 --json / --yaml

认证与反风控:

• Cookie 认证：支持环境变量和浏览器自动提取
• 完整 Cookie 转发：提取浏览器中所有 Twitter Cookie，保留更多浏览器上下文
• TLS 指纹伪装：curl_cffi 动态匹配 Chrome 版本
• x-client-transaction-id 请求头生成
• 请求时序随机化（jitter）
• 写操作随机延迟（1.5–4 秒），降低频率风控
• 代理支持：TWITTER_PROXY 环境变量

安装

# 推荐：uv tool
uv tool install twitter-cli

升级到最新版本：

uv tool upgrade twitter-cli
# 或：pipx upgrade twitter-cli

提示： 建议定期升级，避免因版本过旧导致的 API 调用异常。

使用指南

# 时间线
twitter feed
twitter feed -t following
twitter feed --filter
twitter feed --full-text

# 收藏
twitter bookmarks
twitter bookmarks --full-text

# 搜索
twitter search "Claude Code"
twitter search "AI agent" -t Latest --max 50
twitter search "AI agent" --full-text
twitter search "topic" -o results.json         # 保存到文件
twitter search "trending" --filter              # 启用排序筛选

# 推文详情
twitter tweet 1234567890
twitter tweet 1234567890 --full-text

# 通过序号打开上次列表里的推文
twitter show 2                         # 打开上次 feed/search 的第 2 条
twitter show 2 --full-text             # 在回复表格里显示完整正文
twitter show 2 --json                  # 结构化输出

# Twitter 长文
twitter article 1234567890
twitter article https://x.com/user/article/1234567890 --json
twitter article 1234567890 --markdown
twitter article 1234567890 --output article.md

# 列表时间线
twitter list 1539453138322673664
twitter list 1539453138322673664 --full-text

# 用户
twitter user elonmusk
twitter user-posts elonmusk --max 20
twitter user-posts elonmusk --full-text
twitter user-posts elonmusk -o tweets.json
twitter likes elonmusk --max 30           # ⚠️ 仅可查看自己的点赞（2024年6月起平台已私密化）
twitter likes elonmusk --full-text
twitter likes elonmusk -o likes.json
twitter followers elonmusk
twitter following elonmusk

# 写操作
twitter post "你好，世界！"
twitter post "发图" --image photo.jpg              # 带图发推
twitter post "多图" -i a.png -i b.jpg -i c.webp    # 最多 4 张图片
twitter post "回复内容" --reply-to 1234567890
twitter reply 1234567890 "回复" -i screenshot.png   # 带图回复
twitter quote 1234567890 "评论" -i chart.png        # 带图引用
twitter post "你好，世界！" --json
twitter delete 1234567890
twitter like 1234567890
twitter like 1234567890 --yaml
twitter unlike 1234567890
twitter retweet 1234567890
twitter unretweet 1234567890
twitter bookmark 1234567890
twitter unbookmark 1234567890
twitter follow elonmusk --json

认证说明

认证优先级：

1. 环境变量：TWITTER_AUTH_TOKEN + TWITTER_CT0
2. 浏览器提取（推荐）：Arc/Chrome/Edge/Firefox/Brave 全量 Cookie 提取

推荐使用浏览器提取方式，会转发所有 Twitter Cookie，并按本机运行环境生成语言和平台请求头；它比仅发送 auth_token + ct0 更接近普通浏览器流量，但不等于完整浏览器自动化。

Chrome 多 Profile 支持：会自动遍历所有 Chrome profile。也可以通过环境变量指定：

TWITTER_CHROME_PROFILE="Profile 2" twitter feed

浏览器优先级：如果有多个浏览器，可通过 TWITTER_BROWSER 指定优先尝试的浏览器：

TWITTER_BROWSER=chrome twitter feed    # 支持: arc, chrome, edge, firefox, brave

代理支持

设置 TWITTER_PROXY 环境变量即可：

export TWITTER_PROXY=http://127.0.0.1:7890
# 或 SOCKS5
export TWITTER_PROXY=socks5://127.0.0.1:1080

使用代理可以降低 IP 维度的风控风险。

筛选算法

未传 --max 时，所有读取命令默认使用 config.yaml 里的 fetch.count。

rich table 输出默认会截断较长正文；如果需要在列表视图中查看完整正文，可加 --full-text。

只有在传入 --filter 时才会启用筛选评分；默认不筛选。

评分公式：

score = likes_w * likes
      + retweets_w * retweets
      + replies_w * replies
      + bookmarks_w * bookmarks
      + views_log_w * log10(max(views, 1))

模式说明：

• mode: "topN"：按分数排序后保留前 topN 条
• mode: "score"：仅保留 score >= minScore 的推文
• mode: "all"：按分数排序后全部保留

常见问题

• 报错 No Twitter cookies found：请先登录 x.com，并确认浏览器为 Arc/Chrome/Edge/Firefox/Brave 之一，或手动设置环境变量。

• 如需查看浏览器提取细节，可加 -v 打开诊断日志。

• 报错 Cookie expired or invalid：Cookie 过期，重新登录后重试。

• 报错 Unable to get key for cookie decryption（macOS Keychain 问题）：

  • SSH 远程登录：Keychain 默认锁定，需手动解锁：

    security unlock-keychain ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain-db
    

  • 本地终端：打开 钥匙串访问 → 搜索 "<浏览器> Safe Storage" → 访问控制 → 添加你的终端 app → 保存更改。
  • 或在弹出 Keychain 授权时点击 "始终允许"。

• 报错 Twitter API error 404：通常是 queryId 轮换，重试即可。

• Windows 下 pipe/subprocess 无法捕获输出（AI agent 集成场景）

  • 这是 ConPTY 伪终端的问题，不是 twitter-cli 的 bug。Windows Terminal 的 ConPTY 可能拦截有网络延迟的命令的管道输出。
  • 解决方案：使用 Git Bash 并在终端设置中设置 "windowsEnableConpty": false。
  • ConPTY 关闭后如用 PowerShell，emoji 可能会报 UnicodeEncodeError: 'gbk'。Git Bash 原生支持 UTF-8。
  • 标准 subprocess.run(capture_output=True) 和文件重定向 (> file 2>&1) 不受此问题影响。

• 结构化错误码通常会区分 not_authenticated、not_found、invalid_input、rate_limited、api_error。

使用建议（防封号）

• 使用代理 — 设置 TWITTER_PROXY，避免裸 IP 直连
• 控制请求量 — 用 --max 20 而不是 --max 500
• 避免频繁启动 — 每次启动都会访问 x.com 初始化反检测请求头
• 使用浏览器 Cookie 提取 — 提供完整 Cookie 指纹
• 避免数据中心 IP — 住宅代理更安全
• Cookie 仅在本地使用，不会被本工具上传

输出模式建议

• 默认 rich table 适合终端交互式浏览
• 需要在表格里看完整正文时，使用 --full-text
• 需要脚本消费时，优先使用 --yaml 或 --json
• 需要节省 token 时，使用 -c / --compact

作为 AI Agent Skill 使用

twitter-cli 提供了 SKILL.md，可让 AI Agent 更稳定地调用本工具。

Skills CLI（推荐）

npx skills add jackwener/twitter-cli

参数	说明
-g	全局安装（用户级别，跨项目共享）
-a claude-code	指定目标 Agent
-y	非交互模式

手动安装

mkdir -p .agents/skills
git clone [e-mail]:jackwener/twitter-cli.git .agents/skills/twitter-cli

OpenClaw / ClawHub（已过时）

⚠️ ClawHub 安装方式已过时，不再支持。请使用上方的 Skills CLI 或手动安装。

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