rettiwt-api

Rettiwt-API

A CLI tool and an API for fetching data from Twitter for free!

Prerequisites

• NodeJS 20
• A working Twitter account (optional)

Installation

It is recommended to install the package globally, if you want to use it from the CLI. Use the following steps to install the package and ensure it's installed correctly:

• Open a terminal.
• Install the package using the command npm install -g rettiwt-api.
• Check if the package is installed correctly using the command rettiwt help.

For using the package in your own project, you can install it as a dependency.

Authentication

Rettiwt-API can be used with or without logging in to Twitter. As such, the two authentication strategies are:

• 'Guest' authentication (without logging in) grants access to the following resources/actions:

  • Tweet Details
  • User Details (by username)
  • User Timeline

• 'User' authentication (logging in) grants access to the following resources/actions:

  • List Members
  • List Tweets
  • Tweet Details - Single and Bulk
  • Tweet Like
  • Tweet Likers
  • Tweet Media Upload
  • Tweet Post
  • Tweet Replies
  • Tweet Retweet
  • Tweet Retweeters
  • Tweet Schedule
  • Tweet Search
  • Tweet Stream
  • Tweet Unlike
  • Tweet Unpost
  • Tweet Unretweet
  • Tweet Unschedule
  • User Affiliates
  • User Bookmarks
  • User Details - Single (by ID and Username) and Bulk (by ID only)
  • User Follow
  • User Followed Feed
  • User Followers
  • User Following
  • User Highlights
  • User Likes
  • User Media
  • User Notification
  • User Recommended Feed
  • User Replies Timeline
  • User Subscriptions
  • User Timeline
  • User Unfollow

By default, Rettiwt-API uses 'guest' authentication. If however, access to the full set of resources is required, 'user' authentication can be used. This is done by using the cookies associated with your Twitter/X account, and encoding them into an API_KEY for convenience. The said API_KEY can be obtained by using a browser extension, as follows:

A. For Chrome/Chromium-based browsers:

• Install the X Auth Helper extension from the Chrome Web Store, and allow it to run it in incognito mode.
• Switch to incognito mode and login to Twitter/X.
• After successful login, while still being on Twitter/X, click on the extension which will open the extension popup.
• Click on the Get Key button, this will generate the API_KEY and will show up in the text-area.
• Copy the API_KEY by either clicking on the Copy Key button or manually from the text-area.
• You may close the browser, but don't log out. Remember, since it's incognito mode, you didn't explicity 'log out', so, while the session will be erased from the browser, the API_KEY still remains valid.
• Save the API_KEY for use.

B. For Firefox/Firefox-based browsers:

• Install the Rettiwt Auth Helper extension from Firefox Add-Ons, and allow it to run it in in-private mode.
• Switch to in-private mode and login to Twitter/X.
• After successful login, while still being on Twitter/X, click on the extension which will open the extension popup.
• Click on the Get API Key button, this will generate the API_KEY and will show up in the text-area.
• Copy the API_KEY by either clicking on the Copy API Key button or manually from the text-area.
• You may close the browser, but don't log out. Remember, since it's in-private mode, you didn't explicity 'log out', so, while the session will be erased from the browser, the API_KEY still remains valid.
• Save the API_KEY for use.

Notes:

• API_KEY created in this way should last 5 years from the date of login, as long as the credentials to the account aren't changed.
• This approach can also be done without going into incognito/in-private mode, in which case you can either login as usual or skip the login step if you're already logged in, and continue from the steps after login. However, this makes the API_KEY to last only as long as the Twitter/X account isn't logged out of (you may exit the browser as usual) or 5 years, whichever comes first. That's why it's recommended to use incognito/in-private mode, so that the API_KEY isn't accidentially revoked by logging out.

The API_KEY

The API_KEY generated by logging in is what allows Rettiwt-API to authenticate as a logged in user while interacting with the Twitter API ('user' authentication). As such it is a very sensitive information and therefore, must be stored securely. The following points must be kept in mind while using the API_KEY for 'user' authentication:

• The API_KEY is actually a base64 encoding of the account's cookies.
• The API_KEY provides the same level of authorization as any standard Twitter account, nothing more, nothing less.

Notes for non-programmers

• If you have no idea of programming, it's recommended to use the CLI.
• The CLI provides an easy to use interface which does not require any knowledge of JavaScript or programming
• Please skip to CLI-Usage for details.

Usage as a dependency

Rettiwt-API can be used as a dependency for your NodeJS project. In such a case, it is not required to install Rettiwt-API globally and you may install it locally in the root of your project using the command:

• npm install --save rettiwt-api (using npm)

  or

• yarn add rettiwt-api (using yarn)

However, in this case, for accessing the CLI, you will be required to prepend the CLI commands with npx in order to tell NodeJS to use the locally installed package.

The Rettiwt class

When used as a dependency, the Rettiwt class is entry point for accessing the Twitter API.

A new Rettiwt instance can be initialized using the following code snippets:

• const rettiwt = new Rettiwt() (for 'guest' authentication)
• const rettiwt = new Rettiwt({ apiKey: API_KEY }) (for 'user' authentication)

The Rettiwt class has three members:

• list memeber, for accessing resources related to lists.
• tweet member, for accessing resources related to tweets.
• user member, for accessing resources related to users.

For details regarding usage of these members for accessing the Twitter API, refer to features.

Rettiwt Configuration

When initializing a new Rettiwt instance, it can be configures using various parameters, namely:

• apiKey (string) - The API key to use for user authentication.
• proxyUrl (URL) - The URL to the proxy server to use.
• timeout (number) - The timeout to use for HTTP requests used by Rettiwt.
• logging (boolean) - Whether to enable logging or not.
• errorHandler (interface) - The custom error handler to use.
• tidProvider (interface) - The custom TID provider to use for generating transaction token.
• headers (object) - Custom HTTP headers to append to the default headers.
• delay (number/function) - The delay to use between concurrent requests, can either be a number in milliseconds, or a function that returns the number. Default is 0 (no delay).
• maxRetries (number) - The maximum number of retries to use in case when a random error 404 is encountered. Default is 0 (no retries).

Of these parameters, the following are hot-swappable, using their respective setters:

• apiKey
• headers
• proxyUrl

The following example demonstrates changing the API key on the fly:

import { Rettiwt } from 'rettiwt-api';

// Initializing a new Rettiwt instance with API key 1
const rettiwt = new Rettiwt({ apiKey: '<API_KEY_1>' });

rettiwt.user.details().then((res) => {
	console.log(res); // Returns details of the user associated with API_KEY_1
});

// Changing API key to API key 2
rettiwt.apiKey = '<API_KEY_2>';

rettiwt.user.details().then((res) => {
	console.log(res); // Returns details of the user associated with API_KEY_2
});

Usage

The following examples may help you to get started using the library:

1. Getting the details of a target Twitter user

import { Rettiwt } from 'rettiwt-api';

// Creating a new Rettiwt instance
// Note that for accessing user details, 'guest' authentication can be used
const rettiwt = new Rettiwt();

// Fetching the details of the user whose username is <username>
rettiwt.user.details('<username>')
.then(details => {
	...
})
.catch(error => {
	...
});

2. Getting the list of tweets that match a given filter

import { Rettiwt } from 'rettiwt-api';

// Creating a new Rettiwt instance using the API_KEY
const rettiwt = new Rettiwt({ apiKey: API_KEY });

/**
 * Fetching the list of tweets that:
 * 	- are made by a user with username <username>,
 * 	- contain the words <word1> and <word2>
 */
rettiwt.tweet.search({
	fromUsers: ['<username>'],
	includeWords: ['<word1>', '<word2>']
})
.then(data => {
	...
})
.catch(err => {
	...
});

For more information regarding the different available filter options, please refer to TweetFilter.

3. Getting the next batch of data using a cursor

The previous example fetches the the list of tweets matching the given filter. Since no count is specified, in this case, a default of 20 such Tweets are fetched initially. The following example demonstrates how to use the cursor string obtained from the response object's next field, from the previous example, to fetch the next batch of tweets:

import { Rettiwt } from 'rettiwt-api';

// Creating a new Rettiwt instance using the API_KEY
const rettiwt = new Rettiwt({ apiKey: API_KEY });

/**
 * Fetching the list of tweets that:
 * 	- are made by a user with username <username>,
 * 	- contain the words <word1> and <word2>
 *
 * 'data' is the response object received in the previous example.
 *
 * 'count' is a number less or equal to 20 (the quantity of tweets to return)
 */
rettiwt.tweet.search({
	fromUsers: ['<username>'],
	includeWords: ['<word1>', '<word2>']
}, count, data.next.value)
.then(data => {
	...
})
.catch(err => {
	...
});

4. Getting an API_KEY during runtime, using 'user' authentication (Borked)

Sometimes, you might want to generate an API_KEY on the fly, in situations such as implementing Twitter login in your application. The following example demonstrates how to generate an API_KEY during runtime:

import { Rettiwt } from 'rettiwt-api';

// Creating a new Rettiwt instance
const rettiwt = new Rettiwt();

// Logging in an getting the API_KEY
rettiwt.auth.login('<email>', '<username>', '<password>')
.then(apiKey => {
    // Use the API_KEY
	...
})
.catch(err => {
	console.log(err);
});

Where,

• <email> is the email associated with the Twitter account to be logged into.
• <username> is the username associated with the Twitter account.
• <password> is the password to the Twitter account.

Using a proxy

For masking of IP address using a proxy server, use the following code snippet for instantiation of Rettiwt:

/**
 * PROXY_URL is the URL or configuration for the proxy server you want to use.`
 */
const rettiwt = new Rettiwt({ apiKey: API_KEY, proxyUrl: PROXY_URL });

This creates a Rettiwt instance which uses the given proxy server for making requests to Twitter.

Debug logs

Sometimes, when the library shows unexpected behaviour, for troubleshooting purposes, debug logs can be enabled which will help in tracking down the issue and working on a potential fix. Currently, debug logs are printed to the console and are enabled by setting the 'logging' property of the config to true, while creating an instance of Rettiwt:

/**
 * By default, is no value for 'logging' is supplied, logging is disabled.
 */
const rettiwt = new Rettiwt({ apiKey: API_KEY, logging: true });

Accessing raw response

For getting the raw data instead of the parsed results, all data models provide a getter raw which returns the raw data entity as returned by Twitter, instead of parsing them to Rettiwt's own data entity formats. The following example demonstrates the use of the raw getter:

import { Rettiwt } from 'rettiwt-api';

// Creating a new Rettiwt instance
// Note that for accessing user details, 'guest' authentication can be used
const rettiwt = new Rettiwt();

// Fetching the details of the user whose username is <username>
rettiwt.user.details('<username>')
.then(details => {
	console.log(details);
    // {
    //     "createdAt": "2021-07-24T14:25:32.000Z",
    //     "description": "Coder, Gamer and Tech Enthusiast",
    //     "followersCount": 3,
    //     "followingsCount": 44,
    //     "fullName": "Rishikant Sahu",
    //     "id": "1418940387037782018",
    //     "isVerified": false,
    //     "likeCount": 762,
    //     "profileImage": "https://abs.twimg.com/sticky/default_profile_images/default_profile_normal.png",
    //     "statusesCount": 5,
    //     "userName": "negmatico"
    // }

    console.log(details.raw);
    // {
    //     "__typename": "User",
    //     "id": "VXNlcjoxNDE4OTQwMzg3MDM3NzgyMDE4",
    //     "rest_id": "1418940387037782018",
    //     "affiliates_highlighted_label": {},
    //     "has_graduated_access": true,
    //     "is_blue_verified": false,
    //     "legacy": {
    //         "following": false,
    //         "can_dm": true,
    //         "can_media_tag": true,
    //         "created_at": "Sat Jul 24 14:25:32 +0000 2021",
    //         "default_profile": true,
    //         "default_profile_image": true,
    //         "description": "Coder, Gamer and Tech Enthusiast",
    //         "entities": { "description": { "urls": [] } },
    //         "fast_followers_count": 0,
    //         "favourites_count": 762,
    //         "followers_count": 3,
    //         "friends_count": 44,
    //         "has_custom_timelines": false,
    //         "is_translator": false,
    //         "listed_count": 0,
    //         "location": "",
    //         "media_count": 0,
    //         "name": "Rishikant Sahu",
    //         "needs_phone_verification": false,
    //         "normal_followers_count": 3,
    //         "pinned_tweet_ids_str": [],
    //         "possibly_sensitive": false,
    //         "profile_image_url_https": "https://abs.twimg.com/sticky/default_profile_images/default_profile_normal.png",
    //         "profile_interstitial_type": "",
    //         "screen_name": "negmatico",
    //         "statuses_count": 5,
    //         "translator_type": "none",
    //         "verified": false,
    //         "want_retweets": false,
    //         "withheld_in_countries": []
    //     },
    //     "parody_commentary_fan_label": "None",
    //     "profile_image_shape": "Circle",
    //     "tipjar_settings": {},
    //     "verified_phone_status": false,
    //     "legacy_extended_profile": {
    //         "birthdate": { "day": 18, "month": 1, "year": 2001, "visibility": "Self", "year_visibility": "Self" }
    //     },
    //     "is_profile_translatable": false,
    //     "has_hidden_subscriptions_on_profile": false,
    //     "verification_info": { "is_identity_verified": false },
    //     "highlights_info": { "can_highlight_tweets": false, "highlighted_tweets": "0" },
    //     "user_seed_tweet_count": 0,
    //     "premium_gifting_eligible": true,
    //     "business_account": {},
    //     "creator_subscriptions_count": 0
    // }

})
.catch(error => {
	...
});

However, if further control over the raw response is required, Rettiwt-API provides the FetcherService class which provides direct access to the raw response, but keep in mind, this delegates the task of parsing and filtering the results to the consumer of the library. The following example demonstrates using the FetcherService class:

import { RettiwtConfig, FetcherService, EResourceType, IUserDetailsResponse } from 'rettiwt-api';

// Creating the configuration for Rettiwt
const config = new RettiwtConfig({ apiKey: '<API_KEY>' });

// Creating a new FetcherService instance using the config
const fetcher = new FetcherService(config);

// Fetching the details of the given user
fetcher
	.request<IUserDetailsResponse>(EResourceType.USER_DETAILS_BY_USERNAME, { id: 'user1' })
	.then((res) => {
		console.log(res);
	})
	.catch((err) => {
		console.log(err);
	});

As demonstrated by the example, the raw data can be accessed by using the request method of the FetcherService class, which takes two parameters. The first parameter is the name of the requested resource, while the second is an object specifying the associated arguments required for the given resource. The complete list of resource type can be checked here. As for the resource specific argurments, they are the same as that of the methods of Rettiwt class' methods for the respective resources, but structured as an object. Notice how the FetcherService class takes the same arguments as the Rettiwt class, and the arguments have the same effects as they have in case of Rettiwt class.

Notes:

• For for hot-swapping in case of using FetcherService, the setters are accessed from the config object as config.apiKey = ..., config.proxyUrl = ..., etc.

Data serialization

The data returned by all functions of Rettiwt are complex objects, containing non-serialized fields like raw. In order to get JSON-serializable data, all data objects returned by Rettiwt provide a function toJSON() which converts the data into a serializable JSON, whose type is described by their respective interfaces i.e, ITweet for Tweet, IUser for User and so on.

For handling and processing of data returned by the functions, it's always advisable to serialize them using the toJSON() function.

Features

So far, the following operations are supported:

List

• Getting the members of a given Twitter list
• Getting the list of tweets from a given Twitter list

Tweets

• Getting the details of a tweet/multiple tweets
• Liking a tweet
• Getting the list of users who liked your tweet
• Posting a new tweet
• Getting the list of replies to a tweet
• Retweeting a tweet
• Getting the list of users who retweeted a given tweet by the logged-in user
• Scheduling a new tweet
• Searching for the list of tweets that match a given filter
• Streaming filtered tweets in pseudo-realtime
• Unliking a tweet
• Unposting a tweet
• Unretweeting a tweet
• Unscheduling a tweet
• Uploading a media file for a tweet

Users

• Getting the list of users affiliated with the given user
• Getting the list of tweets bookmarked by the logged-in user
• Getting the details of a user/multiple users
• Following a given user
• Getting the followed feed of the logged-in user
• Getting the list of users who follow the given user
• Getting the list of users who are followed by the given user
• Getting the list of highlighted tweets of the given user
• Getting the list of tweets liked by the logged-in user
• Getting the media timeline of the given user
• Streaming notifications of the logged-in user in pseudo-realtime
• Getting the recommended feed of the logged-in user
• Getting the replies timeline of the given user
• Getting the tweet timeline of the given user
• Unfollowing a given user

CLI Usage

Rettiwt-API provides an easy to use command-line interface which does not require any programming knowledge.

By default, the CLI operates in 'guest' authentication. If you want to use 'user' authentication:

• Generate an API_KEY as described in Authentication.
• Store the output API_KEY as an environment variable with the name 'API_KEY'.
  • Additionally, store the API_KEY in a file for later use.
  • Make sure to generate an API_KEY only once, and use it every time you need it.
• The CLI automatically reads this environment variable to authenticate against Twitter.
  • Additionally, the API_KEY can also be passed in manually using the '-k' option as follows: rettiwt -k <API_KEY> <command>

Help for the CLI can be obtained from the CLI itself:

• For help regarding the available commands, use the command rettiwt help
• For help regarding a specific command, use the command rettiwt help <command_name>

API Reference

The complete API reference can be found at this page.

Additional information

• This API uses the cookies of a Twitter account to fetch data from Twitter and as such, there is always a chance (although a measly one) of getting the account banned by Twitter algorithm.

Donation

Support this project by donating at my PayPal.