Twitter Bot: Node.js and Twitter API v2.0

Twitter Bot: Node.js and Twitter API v2.0

Install node from https://nodejs.org/en/download

CD to the application folder or create the project in Webstorm

To check if the nodejs has been installed tun node -v to get the version like

Create a new node app and install dependencies

npm init -y optional -y tag to say yes to all default options.

It will create a package.json file in the folder

Now add all the packages we will need for our bot.

npm install twitter-api-v2
npm install dotenv
npm install cron
npm install express

Note if express command needs sudo elevation

To see installed packages in the current project as a dependency tree, use npm list

After installing the dependencies the root folder will have node_modules folder and package.json and package-lock.json

Create an .env file in the root to store the API keys from twitter with the following

NODE_ENV="development"
API_KEY="<your-API-key>"
API_SECRET="<your-API-secret>"
ACCESS_TOKEN="<your-access-token>"
ACCESS_SECRET="<your-access-secret>"
BEARER_TOKEN="<your-bearer-token>"

APP_ID="<your-app-id>"

The APP_ID is the first section of the ACCESS_TOKEN before the -

Now create a twitter client.

Create a new file called twitterClient.js and enter the following code.

const { TwitterApi } = require("twitter-api-v2");

const client = new TwitterApi({
  appKey: process.env.API_KEY,
  appSecret: process.env.API_SECRET,
  accessToken: process.env.ACCESS_TOKEN,
  accessSecret: process.env.ACCESS_SECRET,
});

const bearer = new TwitterApi(process.env.BEARER_TOKEN);

const twitterClient = client.readWrite;
const twitterBearer = bearer.readOnly;

module.exports = { twitterClient, twitterBearer };

We will use the twitterBearer to read tweets, and the twitterClient to write to the platform e.g. likes, posts etc.

Create index.js file and call the twitter API

Create an index.js file. This is where the app will run from. Add the following code

index.js

require("dotenv").config({ path: __dirname + "/.env" });
const { twitterClient } = require("./twitterClient.js")

const tweet = async () => {
  try {
    await twitterClient.v2.tweet("Hello world!");
  } catch (e) {
    console.log(e)
  }
}

tweet();

Now in the terminal run node index.js

The above code will import the twitterClient and tweet out “Hello world!”. You can now go to Twitter and check whether the tweet was actually sent.

Setup a cronjob (Optional)

Add the following constant at top of the index.js

const CronJob = require("cron").CronJob;

And at the end of the index.js replace the tweet(); to add the following line.

const cronTweet = new CronJob("30 * * * * *", async () => {
  tweet();
});

cronTweet.start();

The above cronjob formula runs the code every 30 seconds. To choose a preferable formula for intervals use https://crontab.guru/

Now after adding the cronjob codes the final index.js code should look like this.

require("dotenv").config({ path: __dirname + "/.env" });
const { twitterClient } = require("./twitterClient.js")
const CronJob = require("cron").CronJob;

const tweet = async () => {
  try {
    await twitterClient.v2.tweet("Hello world!");
  } catch (e) {
    console.log(e)
  }
}

const cronTweet = new CronJob("30 * * * * *", async () => {
  tweet();
});

cronTweet.start();

The code will fail, saying that you are not allowed to create a Tweet with duplicate content. So need to programmatically change the content to run a cronjob.

Add express (Optional)

If you want to host this Twitter bot on a hosting platform like heroku or render, you will need to add express to your node.js app. This is because when hosting node.js applications, the server need a port to attach to.

To do that, simply add the following to your index.js file.

index.js

const express = require('express')
const app = express()
const port = process.env.PORT || 4000;

app.listen(port, () => {
  console.log(`Listening on port ${port}`)
})

Your final `index.js file should look like this

index.js

require("dotenv").config({ path: __dirname + "/.env" });
const express = require('express')
const app = express()
const port = process.env.PORT || 4000;
const { twitterClient } = require("./twitterClient.js")
const CronJob = require("cron").CronJob;

app.listen(port, () => {
  console.log(`Listening on port ${port}`)
})

const tweet = async () => {
  try {
    await twitterClient.v2.tweet("Hello world!");
  } catch (e) {
    console.log(e)
  }
}

const cronTweet = new CronJob("30 * * * * *", async () => {
  tweet();
});

cronTweet.start();

And that is it, your Twitter bot has been created. All that is left to do now is host your application on your favourite hosting platform.

Acknowledgement: This post has been followed from the post at https://www.ryancarmody.dev/blog/creating-a-twitter-bot-with-nodejs-api

A better way is to host the twitter bot using github actions for free. No hosting required. For this I followed the instructions on Matt Hughes youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsA_kYRHoPY&t=10s and his github page https://github.com/zeepk/twitter-bot-template

Following youtube. tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jl9OKxoqVcA to create a banner with recent follower pictures