IMPORTANT FOR AGENTS: Before executing ANY twitter-cli command, you MUST first check whether credentials exist. If not, proactively guide the user through authentication. 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 trigger HTTP 226 ("looks like automated behavior"). Prefer browser cookie extraction whenever possible.

Step 0: Check if already authenticated

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

If AUTH_OK, continue to the command reference. If AUTH_NEEDED, guide the user using one of the following methods.

Step 1: Guide user to authenticate

Method A: Browser cookie extraction (recommended)

Ensure the user is logged into x.com in Arc, Chrome, Edge, Firefox, or 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

Verify with:

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)

Ask the user to export cookies from a logged-in browser session, then extract:

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 log into `x.com` in a supported browser, or set env vars
Read works, write returns 226	Full cookies are 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 are invalidated; re-extract cookies

Output Format

Default: rich table

twitter feed

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 live under .data.

Full text: `--full-text`

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.

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

Compact mode: `-c`

Use compact mode when token efficiency matters.

twitter -c feed --max 10
twitter -c search "AI" --max 20

Compact tweet fields: id, author, text, likes, rts, time

Command Reference

Read operations

twitter status
twitter status --yaml
twitter whoami
twitter whoami --yaml
twitter whoami --json
twitter user elonmusk
twitter user elonmusk --json
twitter feed
twitter feed -t following
twitter feed --max 50
twitter feed --full-text
twitter feed --filter
twitter feed --yaml > tweets.yaml
twitter feed --input tweets.json
twitter bookmarks
twitter bookmarks --full-text
twitter bookmarks --max 30 --yaml
twitter search "keyword"
twitter search "AI agent" -t Latest --max 50
twitter search "AI agent" --full-text
twitter search "topic" -o results.json
twitter tweet 1234567890
twitter tweet 1234567890 --full-text
twitter tweet https://x.com/user/status/12345
twitter show 2
twitter show 2 --full-text
twitter show 2 --json
twitter list 1539453138322673664
twitter list 1539453138322673664 --cursor "<next-cursor>"
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!"
twitter post "Hello!" --image photo.jpg
twitter post "Gallery" -i a.png -i b.jpg
twitter reply 1234567890 "Great tweet!"
twitter reply 1234567890 "Nice!" -i pic.png
twitter post "reply text" --reply-to 1234567890
twitter quote 1234567890 "Interesting take"
twitter quote 1234567890 "Look" -i chart.png
twitter delete 1234567890
twitter like 1234567890
twitter unlike 1234567890
twitter retweet 1234567890
twitter unretweet 1234567890
twitter bookmark 1234567890
twitter unbookmark 1234567890
twitter follow elonmusk
twitter unfollow elonmusk

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

Daily reading workflow

twitter -c feed -t following --max 30
twitter -c bookmarks --max 20
twitter feed -t following --max 20 --full-text
twitter search "AI agent" --max 20 --full-text
twitter feed -t following --max 30 -o following.json
twitter bookmarks --max 20 -o bookmarks.json

Search with jq filtering

twitter search "AI safety" --max 20 --json | jq '[.data[] | select(.metrics.likes > 100)]'
twitter search "rust lang" --max 10 --json | jq '.data[] | {author: .author.screenName, text: .text[:100]}'
twitter search "topic" --max 20 --json | jq '.data | sort_by(.metrics.likes) | reverse | .[:5] | .[].id'

Limitations

Images only; video/GIF animation upload is not supported yet
No DMs
No notifications
No polls
Single account only
twitter likes works only for your own account because likes are private

Safety Notes

Write operations include random delays to reduce rate-limit risk
Prefer local browser cookie extraction over manual secret copy/paste
Treat cookie values as secrets and do not echo them unnecessarily

twitter-cli

twitter-cli — Twitter/X CLI Tool

Setup

Authentication